Due Date

Have you ever wanted to see Robert Downey, Jr. get a face-full of Zach Galifianakis’ hairy gut? It’s really rather amusing.

Due Date serves up these two highly competent actors in deliciously contrasted roles. But, like many alleged comedies before it, this movie makes the mistake of pursuing sentimentality as well as humor. By doing so, it weakens its case for both.

The premise is simple: Robert Downey, Jr. plays classy, composed architect Peter Highman. He critiques his wife’s list of names for their forthcoming child via Bluetooth headset and needs to fly from Atlanta to LA to be there for the birth of said child. After a few unfortunate run-ins with Zach Galifianakis’ greasy, hairy schlub of a character, Ethan Tremblay, poor Peter winds up on the no-fly list and ends up driving cross-country with none other than Ethan himself and his bat-faced dog.

The movie looks polished and sports a sleek, folk-rock-leaning soundtrack. It does have occasional funny moments, often derived from the combination of Galifianakis’ awkward plaintiveness and Downey, Jr.’s snappish single-mindedness. These moments of humor compete for screen time with strains of drama: Ethan has just lost his loving father and seems desperate for any sort of human connection. Neither character can be sufficiently funny while pulling off pathetic, so Galifianakis falls well short of his full comedic potential. There are also several misplaced moments of mild sadism, such as when Downey, Jr. knocks down a small child who was bothering him with a toy snake, or when the driving duo are violently assaulted by a wheelchair-bound veteran with a baton.

The whole story line suffers from eventual unbelievability. I can buy these characters getting stoned while driving a Land Rover on the highway. Ramming through Mexican police cars in a high-speed chase seems harder to accept. Driving across the American Southwest in a stolen Mexican customs vehicle strays a bit too far from reality.

Despite these flaws, the charm of the leads goes a long way towards making this movie enjoyable. For the most part, it is. If the filmmakers had just tried to make a straightforward road trip comedy, it would have been a good deal more successful.