Brand and Hill in "Get Him to the Greek."

Get Him to the Greek

By Dan Hudak // hudakonhollywood.com

Rated (R)
Is it worth $10? Yes
Hudak grades it a B

Ah, to party like a rock star. Chicks fall all over you. Drugs take you to a different place, even if you’re standing still. Drinking until you can drink no more. What fun. What chaos. And what a headache for nice guy Aaron Green, who’s forced to keep up with rock star Aldous Snow in “Get Him to the Greek,” a raucous comedy that takes place after the story in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” but isn’t a sequel. More on that later.

Aaron (Jonah Hill) is ambitious, which is good, but also naïve, which is bad. After his record company boss (Sean “P. Diddy” Combs) green lights Aaron’s idea to have Snow (Russell Brand) put on a concert, Aaron has 72 hours to fly to London and bring Snow back to the Greek Theatre in L.A. Seems simple enough.

The problem is Snow is going through a tough breakup with his beloved Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), and is in no condition to perform. All Snow wants to do is party, ingest all kinds of substances and have lots of meaningless sex. Given that Aaron has always idolized him, it’s not hard for Aaron to be duped into a series of distractions.

Writer/director Nicholas Stoller’s movie plays out like a series of sketches as Aaron moves Aldous from one point to the next, and for the most part the vignettes are funny. Some scenes try a bit too hard – heroin at the airport for one, and Aldous hanging out with Aaron’s girlfriend (Elisabeth Moss) toward the end for another – but overall the outrageous comedy feels organic. You can credit Hill and Brand for most of this, but don’t overlook P. Diddy’s scene-stealing performance as well – he’s very funny.

Some will recall that Hill played a waiter who was a huge fan of Aldous Snow in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” which was also directed by Stoller. According to the press notes, “Greek” was intended to be an entirely new project as the rock star was supposed to have a different name. But when Stoller realized he was writing Snow, and learned Brand would play the role, he gave in and changed the name to Aldous Snow in the script.

Why not let Hill be Matthew the waiter again? The unclear reason given was that Matthew was “too broad” a character to sustain a whole movie. Whatever that means. Thankfully, this casting/character situation is only a distraction if you allow it to be, and there’s no good reason for you to allow it to be.

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