I don’t really like writing reviews of comedies if only because in a subjective medium comedies are double or triple subjective. Everyone likes something different and some people make some distinction between laughing at a comedy and truly finding it funny. An ex of mine went with me to see Zoolander and I thought she was going to have to be resuscitated she was laughing so hard yet when we left she claimed it was awful and she hated it. When I said I was confused she explained ‘I was laughing at how stupid it was.’ Given the sort of comedy Zoolander offers,  her clarification did very little for my lack of understanding.  I was particularly puzzled when I tried to reconcile this event with the knowledge that her favorite movie was Bio-Dome. So it is with this subjectivity in mind that I get into Get Him to the Greek. I thought it was very, very funny but in this case there is more to it than just being funny and thankfully that generally works here too.

Since last we saw him in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) has fallen on some hard times. His girlfriend and mother of his child has gotten bored with sobriety and bailed on him, his band Infant Sorrow’s last album ‘African Child’ bombed hard being called the worst thing to happen to Africa since apartheid and he has had a massive relapse while his now ex has gotten sober and much more successful. In comes record company intern Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) a lifelong Infant Sorrow fan who has the idea to get the band back together to play an anniversary show at the Greek Theater. Details are worked out and Green is sent to retrieve Snow from London and bring him back to New York for a Today Show taping and then on to L.A. for the concert itself. Sounds easy but if it were it wouldn’t be a comedy. What follows is a marathon of drugs, alcohol and sex as Snow meanders his way through the trip doing his best to delay Green by getting him as fucked up as possible.

There are people out there who have a low tolerance for raunchy comedy and for drug and alcohol related comedy. This movie is not for them. Likewise, people who find Russell Brand annoying are not going to find a lot to change their minds here either. But the gross out and excess humor isn’t the only game in town. Aside from the same sort of spot on pop music parody we got in Forgetting Sarah Marshall there is also a more serious bent to the movie as it explores themes such as addiction and exploitation. While Snow and Green’s behavior under the influence is generally funny, the movie doesn’t really poke fun at the addiction aspects of it and even takes it pretty seriously. Despite his antics, Snow is not a one dimensional character and the exploration of his addictions is an  earnest one. The exploitation of musicians in the music industry is likewise explored and again done so in a way that can be funny on the surface but is almost disturbing underneath. Still, the  movie never feels overly heavy and certainly never preachy but it does regard these things as real issues and the movie is better for it.

Russell Brand and Jonah Hill turn in very good, very believable performances that could have been over the top and ridiculous but because they are playing people instead of caricatures they feel real. Sure, the trailers don’t show that but there is a reason you watch a whole movie and not just the trailers. As good as Brand and Hill are, the real star of the show is Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs as Sergio the head of the label who sends Green out and keeps up with him throughout the course of the film. Diddy steals every scene he is in and again does so without going so far overboard that it feels ridiculous.

That is the thing about Get Him to the Greek that is kind of interesting. The humor is over the top and the antics are excessive and kind of overblown but the movie doesn’t feel that way. There aren’t any huge leaps of logic to make or disbelief that you have to massively suspend (except for maybe getting through airport security so quickly) that would take you out of the movie. It is excess but it is realistic excess. That the movie is grounded in relationships that feel real and in circumstance that, while extreme, could certainly be real makes it feel like the gross out stuff and over the top debauchery feel earned, or if not earned then certainly excusable.

It isn’t all good however. Snow, while wacky and drunk, is not as funny as he was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The character is at his best when he is lucid and sarcastic and he loses most of that when he is drunk and wild. The best parts of Get Him to the Greek are when he is between binges. Sadly,  those moments don’t happen all that often. Thankfully Diddy and Hill are both very funny as well so it all evens out in the end.

Conclusion [8.5 out of 10]

A lot of times the best parts of comedies are in the trailer and there are no more big laughs to be had in the movie. That is not the case here as the majority of the material shown in the trailers is not in the movie. What IS in the movie is a collection of hilarious debauchery jokes set against a backdrop of serious issues. The film has a heart but never gets overly sentimental and never loses sight of the fact that it is a comedy. Even at its heaviest moments there are laughs to be had. It is not going to change the world, and I still prefer Forgetting Sarah Marshall (but then they are very different movies) but it was a damn funny movie and it gives a little something extra. Also, it gives us petting the furry wall and the Jeffrey and that is pretty awesome in and of itself.