Get Him To The Greek
(15) 108min
Russell Brand proved a big hit Stateside with his role as debauched pop-star Aldous Snow in Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall. For this spin-off, writer Segel and director Stoller use the tried-and-tested format of the Judd Apatow stable, with the bearded comic matched up with Superbad’s Jonah Hill for a raunchy bromance.
Retreading the plot of Richard Benjamin’s underrated 1982 showbiz scene comedy My Favourite Year, Hill plays Aaron Green, a music-industry flunky instructed by his boss Sergio (Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs) to escort the erratic Snow from London to the Greek Theatre in LA for a comeback concert. Despite their obvious differences, Snow and Green quickly bond over alcohol, sex and narcotics abuses, giving the shy executive a misplaced sense of confidence in himself.
Get Him to the Greek runs out of steam midway, but Brand, Hill and Combs in particular cope well with the music industry satire, with Snow’s po-faced sense of his own importance nicely skewered. As with his live performances, Brand’s self-parody gives way to annoying narcissism, but not before Get Him to the Greek has hit enough targets to pass muster as a sharp lampoon of celebrity culture.
General release from Fri 25 Jun.