Film File - Due Date

The road movie never goes out of fashion in Hollywood. And especially when you dump a pair of completely mismatched people in a common predicament forcing them to use fair means and foul to find their way home. Sound a bit 'Planes And Boats And Trains’ to you? Well, you’re right in the ball park with this updated road trip from hell. From director Todd Phillips, 'Due Date’ tracks the travails of two unlikely strangers who are thrown together on a journey that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous. Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jnr), is an expectant first-time father whose wife is due to deliver just five days away. As he hurries to catch a flight home from Atlanta to be at her side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when a chance encounter with aspiring actor EthanTremblay (Zach Galifianakis) forces the unlikely pair into sharing a cross-country road trip that will ultimately destroy several cars, mangle numerous friendships and test Peter’s last nerve to the limits of its endurance. Director/screenwriter/producer Philips recently directed and produced the last year’s blockbuster comedy 'The Hangover’, also starring Galifianakis - a film that became the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time and won a Golden Globe for Best Comedy. He is currently in pre-production on the much-anticipated sequel, 'Hangover 2’, which reunites the cast. Due Date’works as an in-between project, and is very much in the same madcap vein. Having lost his chance to catch that last flight home from Atlanta, Highman (an interesting choice of name given Downey’s previous personal problems with drugs) is the classic buttoned-down straight man suddenly cast into the alien world of an actor who believes he’s going to crack the big time whatever the cost. From leading a predictable and conservative life, Highman is now bombarded with personal questions and dilemmas in the company of a seemingly crazed individual a million miles distant in life outlook and temperament. At the end of this nightmare, Highman will emerge a changed man with a destroyed wardrobe, a broken arm and a gunshot wound - but along the way he’ll learn a few things about himself and the world he never knew existed. For those of us watching this unfolding nightmare, the laughs come quick and fast and one ridiculous scenario piles upon the next in an unstoppable road to hell that brings him closer to the birth of his baby. Backed up by a solid cast that includes Michelle Monaghan, Jamie Foxx and Juliette Lewis, Due Date is a laugh fest ideally placed to counter the cold evenings and downbeat economic headlines of the real world. For Galifianakis, the film is a continuation of a clever career path based on taking his stoner/loser characters in everything from 'Up In The Air’, 'Youth in Revolt’ and 'The Hangover’ to ever greater levels of zaniness. The blitzed-out eyes, the nutty nuances, the ability to turn every plus situation into a minus - he's a mirror image of John Candy for a new generation. But what really elevates Due Date above the garden variety teen excess flick into something much more credible is Downey choosing to play against type as the uptight executive control freak who finds himself in a world constantly spinning out of control. From the earliest scenes in the film where he interviews a prospective Jamaican nanny and demands she submit to a urine drug test - “what not? It’s part of their culture, isn’t it” he says to his outraged wife - Downey makes a complete u-turn from the cool as ice 'Iron Man’ into a character definitely out of his normal comfort zone. A snappy script, clever cultural crashes and a pair of top form leads makes Due Date a trip well worth the time.