Myst Post #3: Due Date (2010)

Due Date is one of the best comedies I have seen in the past 5 years.  Even though Zach Galifianakis plays a similar character to his infamous role as Allen in the Hangover series, it is still equally as funny. Personally, I think that Robert Downey Jr. is one of the most talented actors of this day and age and his role in this movie as a tightly wound business man who is just trying to get home for the birth of his child is great.  The idea of two men who end up having to travel across the country has been done before in a movie called Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  John Candy is the equivalent to Zach G's character as the eccentric, go with the flow kind of guy is just trying to be friendly.  While Steve Martin's character is similar to Downey Jr.'s character as the high strung, strictly business kind of guy who's top priority of getting home on time is far more important than forming any type of relationship with the goon he is stuck with.

One of the reasons why I liked this movie so much is because I felt that Downey Jr.'s character was very realistic.  His reactions to the wild events that take place in the film seem as though that is how he would actually react in real life.  Zach G's character is a little more unrealistic, but provides significant comic relief during some of the more serious scenes of the movie.  Zach G. also just has one of those appearances that makes you want to laugh at whatever he says.  Although he also proves that he can play a rather serious role in certain scenes of this movie when him and Downey Jr. start to open up to each other about their personal lives.  As I said before, he plays pretty much the same character as he did in the Hangover, but it really just never seems to get old.  His outrageous behavior and complete obliviousness to everything that is going on around him just makes make for one of the funniest movie characters of all time, in my opinion.  Even though it is pretty easy to predict that they will eventually become great friends in the process of their crazy cross country road trip, it is still a great story.  The director chooses to reveal a lot more information about Zach G's character's personal that Downey Jr's and I'm not sure as to why that is, but I wouldn't say that it takes away from the story at all.

I don't think the use of camera angle was really a huge concern with this director.  Not that it is not well done or anything, there just wasn't really anything that necessarily stood out to me.  However, there were a lot of aesthetically pleasing shots of their car zooming down the highway with some pretty stunning scenery.  One scene in which I thought the camera angles were very cool is when Zach G's character lets his father's ashes go into the Grand Canyon.  I was also very pleased with the soundtrack to this movie.  I actually looked it up after watching it and got a bunch of songs for my personal music library because I really liked what I heard.  It wasn't just the song choice though, it was the timing of the songs.  The soundtrack does a great job highlighting the mood during the movie and that is one of my favorite aspects of any movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY681pYcG7E&feature=relmfu
This is the Grand Canyon scene which includes some great scenery