Due Date, the Todd Phillips follow up to last year’s hit the Hangover, delivers satisfying laughs in a very well worn package.

Starring Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis, Due Date follows the Planes, Trains and Automobiles formula pretty much to a T. Downey Jr plays Peter Highman, an architect trying to return home for the birth of his child who is waylaid and put on the federal no fly list due to Galifianakis’s Ethan Tremblay, a wanna be actor moving to L.A. following his father’s funeral. The two rent a car to travel across country and all manner of hilarity ensues.

If you have seen any kind of road movie in the past, including Phillips’s own Road Trip, you will have a good sense of how things are going to go and what sorts of twists the journey will take. It is so invested in that formula, it could easily have been a remake of the aforementioned John Hughes classic had the names been the same and if they were heading home to Thanksgiving. This, of course, sounds like a bad thing until you factor in that Todd Phillips is a pro and so are his leads. What the movie lacks in originality it makes up for in pushing the limits and going the extra mile for the laugh.

The cast finds ways to make familiar archetypes feel fresh by infusing them with real heart and feelings. Galifianakis doesn’t do a John Candy sort of character here nor is he just channeling his Alan character from the Hangover. He gives Ethan pitch perfect mannerisms and manages to be absolutely infuriatingly annoying but still endearing enough not to kill and leave at the side of the road. Given some of the things this guy does, that is quite a feat. Downey Jr, for his part, also delivers a character that is an archetype but manages to do it in a way we haven’t seen from him. He is a dick but he is a dick who is aware he is a dick and is trying not to be a dick. This is important because it allows us not to hate him for some of the shit he does too.

This is one way that Due Date strays from typical formulas in that both of the characters are pretty awful and would be terrible to travel with but their idiosyncrasies don’t detract from them being likable at bottom. In Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Steve Martin’s character is not very nice to John Candy’s Dell Griffin but it is just mostly that he is annoyed and stressed. He is more of an every man and the audience identifies with him and his having to put up with a force of nature level fuck up. Here, Peter Highman is more normal than Ethan but he isn’t meant to just be like everyone else either. He is absolutely a dick and he doesn’t really need that much to stress him out for him to start unleashing it on everyone.

Of course, the characters change and grow as they travel together and have to learn  things but the movie doesn’t belabor this point too much and is never overly sentimental about it. I suppose overly sentimental would be hard to pull of when you have a dog jerking off or any of the other things that go on here. Mostly the movie just wants to make you laugh and it earns its sentimental moments well enough through character development that feels organic to the story and never feels cheap.

All that being said, if you are going in looking for Hangover (or even Old School) level laughs from Due Date you are going to leave disappointed. The trailers spoil a lot of the really big laughs and the ones left to discover are mild at best. It is not bad or unfunny but Phillips raised the bar for himself pretty high with the Hangover and Due Date pretty much limboed under it. They can’t all be mega hits and sometimes you just want an afternoon at the theater with a competently made comdey that will make you laugh. This is that comdey.

Conclusion [8.0 out of 10]

Due Date is funny and unapologetic, well acted and light. It isn’t bad and I felt it was money well spent but it isn’t destined to be a classic like some of Phillips’s other efforts. Full price wouldn’t have upset me but I recommend paying bargain prices. That way you are sure to feel like you are getting your money’s worth.