Due Date
I’m watching Due Date, with a stellar cast: Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan, Jamie Foxx, Juliette Lewis, Danny McBride, RZA, Matt Walsh, and Brody Stevens.
Add to that a terrific script—picaresque misadventure odd-couple buddy comedy, I guess you would call it.
And, in addition to that solid foundation, I believe the laughs have extra energy because the premise of the movie—that on a perfectly normal day everything not only can go wrong, it can get worse—is exactly the background common worry. Why there is this on-going subliminal (as it were) sense of dread? Well, take a look: job losses, bad economy, Congress unable to function, a constant drumbeat of alarm over terrorism, violence drawing ever closer to our borders. It’s no wonder that there is a high level of background anxiety—and that energy is what makes this comedy so funny. It’s cathartic laughter, and it’s releasing a lot of energy.
Watch the movie and see if you don’t agree.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll look for it on PPV soon.
zaine_ridling
13 October 2011 at 9:53 pm
My girlfriend and I loved that movie. The creators weren’t just confident to push the envelope–they pushed it far, and in ways both innovative and hilarious.
You’re right–I never thought about it, but the movie is intimate with its setting without pushing it down viewers’ throats.
scottbartlett
16 October 2011 at 8:39 am
After writing the above, I went and read some reviews. I thought most of the reviewers sort of missed the point of the movie. From the very opening—with Robert Downey, Jr. lying in bed and oddly talking aloud about kids’ names (and then he rolls from his side onto his back so we see the earpiece and realize he’s on the phone), we are to identify with Downey: a regular professional guy, simply eager to get home for the birth of his first child. So whatever happens to Downey is happening to *us* (the viewer), as it were, and his perfectly reasonable objections to whatever’s going on (though he—and we—are often wrong-footed by what occurs next) are just the sort of objections we would make. So as the day goes from bad to worse—and at each stage, us thinking, “Wow! Well, it can’t get any worse”—and then it DOES, big time… I just roared with laughter.
LeisureGuy
16 October 2011 at 9:15 am