“The Greek” a self-indulgent mess

P. Diddy couldn't save this knockoff of a better 1982 movie

| Jun 15, 2010

A scene from Get Him to the Greek
Get Him to the Greek, starring Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, is a major disappointment if you were expecting something original from the team that made the 2008 Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

On the other hand, as I have been saying for years, “Hollywood has run out of ideas,” and what can you expect when almost every other new movie is a sequel, a prequel, a remake, or even “based on the characters” from another movie as this one is?

This movie should have a title in the closing credits that says “Based on the premise of the 1982 My Favorite Year,” which starred Peter O’Toole and Mark Linn-Baker.

You be the judge: Leonard Maltin says in his Movie Guide that the earlier film is “about a young writer on TV’s top comedy show in 1954 who’s given the job of chaperoning that week’s guest star, screen swashbuckler and off-screen carouser Alan Swann.”

This film is about a record-company intern who’s given the job of chaperoning a British rock star from London to the Los Angeles Greek Theater in 72 hours, where he is scheduled to give a concert, and the rock star’s name is Aldous Snow. Same initials. Coincidence? Or intentional?

Anyway, the record-company executive is played by Sean “P. Diddy” Puff Daddy Do-wah Diddy Combs, and he tells his staff, “We got to thicken our revenue stream.”

Aaron Green suggests the idea of putting on a 10th anniversary concert at the Greek with Aldous Snow, and once that Snow agrees, Aaron is given the task of getting Snow from his home in London to Los Angeles in time for the concert.

And, of course, nothing goes as Aaron plans.

Snow believes that the concert is in two months and that Aaron chenged the date on him. So, Snow would rather party than catch a flight.

To keep Snow sober, Aaron drinks all of Snow’s booze in his flask and smokes all of Snow’s weed.

A stop in New York City for an appearance on the “Today” show doesn’t go well at all.

Snow asks Aaron to do something for him that is illegal as well as disgusting.

And then Snow changes their flight to go to Las Vegas so he can visit his father.

Get Him to the Greek is not much more than a self-indulgent knockoff.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”

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“Hotshots” is a weekly movie review by Dan Culberson available on KGNU Community Radio (88.5 FM in Boulder and 1390 AM in Denver, on Filmchannel1, and on Boulder Reporter. Culberson has been reviewing films since 1972 for newspapers, magazines, radio and television.