Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis in Due Date.By John Thomason
In Due Date, Robert Downey Jr. adds a heretofore-absent patina of acting credibility to the sophomoric cinema of Todd Phillips.
He stars as Peter, a harried architect with anger management issues who, thanks to highly improbable conceit aboard an airplane, winds up on a no-fly list, sans wallet, ID and luggage, and is forced to trek cross-country with stranger Ethan (Zach Galifianakis), the clingy aspiring actor whose actions prompted the onboard national-security crisis.
Combining the road-movie dynamic of Phillips’ Road Trip and the gotta-meet-a-deadline anxiety of his Hangover – Peter has to be in Los Angeles for his wife’s C-section by the end of the week – Due Date has all the elements of another overhyped exercise in juvenile frat-boy high jinks from modern cinema’s chief purveyor of them. Indeed, a cameo by Danny McBride as a wheelchair-bound Iraq War veteran is cringe-inducing in its crude farfetchedness, and the characters’ inciting incident – a kerfuffle over the use of the word “bomb” on an airplane – was a lot more relevant a decade ago when it stymied Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. Reality is further strained when the lead actors emerge relatively unscathed from violent accidents that would have sent Superman six feet under.
That being said, there are many reasons why Due Date is the best film Phillips has ever made, starting with the obvious: It’s his only movie yet that is as funny as it thinks it is. Most of the humor is original, inspired, and appropriately outrageous, from the brutal sucker-punching of an obnoxious child to the only masturbating-dog joke that’s worth your laughter. Downey and Galifianakis’ odd-couple chemistry is infectious, sometimes charming and refreshingly erratic, to the point where nearly every action in every scene is a surprise.
There’s also the fact that Due Date is – gasp – the most mature film Phillips has made. Ethan, with his ridiculous perm and portfolio of publicity photos, harbors an ocean of melancholy under his embarrassing Hollywood aspirations. His hurt is rooted in the recent death of his father, whose ashes he carries in a coffee canister and whose funeral in Atlanta brought him on the fateful flight with Peter. The times when Phillips chips away at Ethan’s façade to get to the raw emotion underneath find the director exhibiting rare dramatic poignancy, and it suits him well.
But perhaps the strongest advancement this film has made vis-a-vis Phillips’ previous movies is its treatment of women. In Phillips’ bromances, women are generally not to be trusted beyond their sexual functionality. It’s still a man’s world in Due Date, with Peter’s wife Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) seen only when she’s communicating with her husband. But this time, the rampant sexism that has previously turned the vast majority of Phillips’ females into bitches, strippers, unfaithful girlfriends and male-neutering domesticators is gone.
And if you need another reason to admire Due Date beyond its surprisingly smart and touching affability, wait until the last scene, which finds Galifianakis appearing on an episode of Two and a Half Men, his longtime inspiration to enter the world of acting. Let’s just say that given Charlie Sheen’s recent drug-induced meltdown, Phillips proves himself to be a shrewd prognosticator of tabloid scandal.
DUE DATE. Director: Todd Phillips. Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan, Jamie Foxx, Juliette Lewis. Studio: Warner Brothers. Rated: R. Opens: Friday. At area theaters.