Get Him To The Greek is a spin-off film for the Aldus Snow character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall played by British comedian Russell Brand. Now I liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it was a fun and silly film with some great performances from Jason Segal, Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell. I thought Russell Brand was good as well but I found him to be disgusting, which perfectly fit the character but it didn’t feel like much of a stretch for him. Obviously they felt the character was popular enough to warrant his own film, and here lies this film.
So as the title suggests, this is meant to be a kind of road film. Jonah Hill plays Aaron Green, he works for a record company run by Sergio Roma (Sean Combs). He has the bright idea to have a 10th anniversary concert at the Greek theater in L.A. for Aldus Snow (Russell Brand) and his band. It has been three years since Aldus has done anything music wise, since his last album African Child flopped big time. Aldus is the typical rock star, drinks and does drugs, comes on to anything that moves, yet still hung up on his ex singer Jackie Q (Rose Byrne).
I was expecting this to be one of those really crazy films, where all sorts of really outrageous stuff happens and there’s no way they make it to the Greek. But I was wrong, this was actually really toned down, it wasn’t was well gross and crazy as I was expecting. Aaron Green is a typical nice guy character, a big fan of Aldus, he’s in a relationship with his girlfriend Daphne (Elisabeth Moss). Of course that side story line gets mixed up when Aaron gets the task of picking up Aldus. That part I thought worked, we have a cute couple who have their issues, and Aaron does some rather stupid things because of Aldus. Meanwhile Aldus wants to party and drink and do drugs, and while things get crazy all it does it delay their flight to New York for the Today Show. After that Aldus wants to see his father Jonathan (played oh so well by the always awesome Colm Meany) in Vegas. Yes this is a set back and lessons are learned but it is not as crazy as it should have been. This probably provides the funniest moments in the film, along with the really stupid songs Aldus has.
I didn’t mind Russell Brand in this, he was toned down and he was not as gross as he was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Jonah Hill is likable, and he plays this role well, these two actually had some great chemistry which helped the film along. The stand outs though were Rose Byrne as the clueless singer and ex, she was just insane, loved it! Sean Combs showed his stuff as Sergio, and he really was quite good. Colm Meany proves he can do anything, he was great as his father, what a perfect piece of casting. However the film suffers from a very poor script, there was so much potential but it did not deliver. What should have been a lot more crazy and outrageous was really more tame and silly. There are laughs to be had, and a few really awkward moments but I felt this could have been a lot better.
The Super Network 