Due Date [Blu-ray]

Due Date features Robert Downey Junior (Iron Man) and Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover) as Peter Highman and Ethan Tremblay, a couple of guys on the same flight to LA. Peter is heading home to LA to meet his heavily pregnant wife who is about to give birth whilst Ethan is heading to Hollywood to try and make it as an actor. When a minor altercation gets them thrown off of the plane and put on the no-fly list, Peter has no option but to buddy up with the insanely annyoing Ethan and drive the distance from Atlanta to LA to make the birth of his child. Will he make in time? Or will Ethan's endless stops & detours be their downfall?

This is the same premise as the classic 1987 comedy Planes, Trains & Automobiles (albeit with a pregnancy instead of the Christmas holidays being the reason for the trip) as the guys form the original odd couple. The premise holds water being ushered into the modern age as the pair bumble from one travel-related disaster to another, hilarity ensues.

There is the feeling that both actors found their roles pretty easy; with Downey Jr. playing the high-flying suited architect with no patience and Galifianakis plays the same character he always does with the wild-eyed, dead-pan delivery style and the ever-present facial hair. Whilst neither of them are pushing the envelope in any respect they provide very tangible - if a little clichéd and two-dimensional - characters that bring a lot of humour to the saga. Jamie Foxx (Collateral) also pops up as one of Peter's friends that lends a hand and adds an unexpected twist to the story.

The film is beautifully shot as we get to see the guys travelling across some of the most famous U.S. landscapes (The Missippi & the Grand Canyon to name a couple) and this is overlaid with a great score that fits each scene well. Although the humour relies mainly on hyperbole between Galifianakis' stupidity and Downey's straight man this is an honestly entertaining experience for the duration, clocking in at a light 95 minutes.

The Blu-ray has a suite of extras which include: The complete "Two and a Half Men" scene featuring Zack Galifianakis (an excerpt of it plays in the movie), a few additional scenes that didn't make the cut, an action & gag reel and last but not least "Due Date: Too Many Questions" a mash-up compilations of all of the ridiculously stupud questions Ethan asks Peter, hit after hit.

In conclusion, a solid film that isn't all that original, a bit thin on character development but it's one funny ride from beginning to end. Recommended!!

I steered clear of this film when it first came to theatres thinking it would not be my cup of tea, as despite being a massive fan of Robert Downey jr, I despise Zach Galifanakis in every role I've seen him in - he always strikes me as that annoying friend who always tries TOO hard to be funny and it just gets incredibly annoying.
However I heard absolutely fantastic things about this film over the years - saying even though I hated The Hangover I would really enjoy this one, so I did get decide to give it a go.

This film had a few laughs to it I won't deny, but they were very few and far between - and it worked so very hard to be crude at every opportunity that it almost made Downey unlikeable (at one point he spits in the face of a dog for no reason whatsoever). It started to get interesting about the halfway point when Downey and Galifanakis shared a character moment with improv acting, but it didn't seem to actually go anywhere or affect anything so felt out of place. And a running subplot they picked up and ran with for a good portion of the movie where they wondered whether Downey's wife was having an affair with his best friend, but that gets completely dropped at one point and is never properly resolved.
And that's this film really, trying too hard, and feeling very unfinished by the end of it.

This probably depends on your sense of humour and it's certainly not mine. It's the same plot as "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", where a conventional man is forced to travel with a slob. That was funny. The main reason why Due Date fails is because the Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) character is not at all endearing, only stupid and crass in an entirely non-funny way, and Peter the "conventional" half (Robert Downey Jnr) is equally unlikeable. In fact it's embarrassing and cringe-worthy. What's funny about taking drugs, thumping a child in the stomach, or doing things in public that are usually kept in the bedroom? I can't agree with the reviewer who said "if you like The Hangover you'll like this" because I laughed a lot in The Hangover, but only once in Due Date: when Peter says to Ethan "The Mississippi isn't in Texas, it's in Mississippi." That's how desperate I was to laugh. It's ludicrous to think Ethan would have been given a job as an actor, and the clip they show of him in a prime-time show is as unfunny as the rest of the film.