Review by Stuart O'Connor
Stars Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Rose Byrne, Colm Meaney, Sean Combs, Zoe Salmon,
Lars Ulrich, Pink, Kurt Loder, Christina Aguilera, Kristen Bell | Written by Nicholas Stoller & Jason Segel
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £24.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 105 minutes | Directed by Nicholas Stoller
Hill has been hovering on the edges of Hollywood comedy for a few years now, doing good, steady work in films such as I Heart Huckabees, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. But it was his breakout role as Seth in Superbad that really made us all sit up and take notice.
The big fella has top billing here as Aaron Green, a young Pinnacle Records employees given a pretty tough assignment: fly to London and escort a retired rock god to LA to play a comeback gig at the Greek Theatre (no, I've never heard of it either). Said rock god is Aldous Snow (Brand), that pompous, egotistical, sex-addicted twat we first me in 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall. So Aaron has just two days to escort Aldous to LA – while trying to keep him clean and sober enough to perform when he gets there. Not an easy task.
Get Him to the Greek could, I suppose, be called a road movie, moving as it does from London on to New York and then Las Vegas before it finally gets to LA. On there way there is plenty of drug-fueled partying and debauchery, just the sort of behaviour that we have come to expect from those in the music biz. As far as laughs go, it's pretty hit and miss. There are a few decent ones to be had, but towards the end it veers into some quite dark territory and the humour dries up somewhat. Brand is perfect as Snow – sometimes you have to wonder if he's even acting, or just playing a slightly exaggerated version of himself.
Standout, though, is Hill. We've come to expect to see him as the foul-mouthed slacker that he played in previous Judd Apatow films such as Knocked Up and Superbad. But here he's much more restrained as the harried escort trying to keep his charge under control and on schedule. Also shining are Elisabeth Moss (who we know well from The West Wing and Mad Men) as Green's girlfriend, Daphne, and my fellow countryman Byrne as Jackie Q, the love of Snow's life. Brand is keen to break it big in the US, and this film certainly won't hurt his chances, but where it works best is in showing just what a talented young man that Jonah Hill is.
EXTRAS ★★★★★ Wow, just wow. If only ALL bonus packages were this good. The first disc has the film, in two versions – theatrical cut (1:49:04) and extended cut (1:53:51); an audio commentary with director Stoller, cast members Hill, Brand, Byrne and Moss, and producer Rodney Rothman; the making-of documentaries Getting to Get Him To The Greek (32:07), Getting in Tune With the Greek (13:47), and The Making of African Child (6:26); music videos for The Greek Concert 1999, The Greek Concert 2009, The Today Show: The Clap, VH1 Storyteller: Furry Walls, World Tour: Riding Daphne, and the London O2 Concert; and karaoke singalong for nine tracks. The second disc features a gag reel (10:18); Line-a-rama, which has alternative versions of lines of dialogue (9:12); an alternate opening to the film (5:53); an alternate ending (3:17); 17 deleted scenes; 22 extended and alternate scenes; scenes from the "Sarah Marshall" TV show Blind Medicine, which also stars Rick Schroeder (2:31); character interviews from The One Show, MTV, The Today Show and The View (18:00); and audition tapes for Byrne, Elizabeth Moss, Nick Kroll, Aziz Ansari and TJ Miller (17:51).