Starring Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Sean Combs, Rose Byrne & Colm Meaney
Directed by Nicholas Stoller

★★★

John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Sacha Baron Coen, Ricky Gervais and now Russell Brand. The comic English man in Hollywood has proved bittersweet over the years, as the CV’s of some of the above would attest. Thankfully, Brand’s first lead outing proves to be on the sweeter side.

Reprising his brief role from 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshal, Brand plays Aldous Snow, a British rock star in the classic bad boy vein, whose intoxicated off stage antics are as crowd pleasing as the pumped up attitude of his songs. Once a multi-platinum selling artist however, his popularity is beginning to dwindle and his decision to go back on the wagon as well as release a dreadful ‘awareness’ record prove to be the final nails in the coffin.

Suffering alongside him is his record company, which on top of taking a hard hit from illegal downloading has not managed to sign a decent act in the last few years. Aaron Green, one of the label’s junior execs, has an idea; since it’s approaching the tenth anniversary of Snow’s classic concert at Los Angela’s Greek Theatre, a comeback gig at the same venue to mark the occasion might just be the financial break they so desperately need. The idea is taken on board by Label Boss Sergio (Combs) and Greene is given the responsible task of flying to London and personally escorting Snow to LA in time for the gig along with some lucrative promotional spots.

Not too difficult a task it would seem, if it weren’t for the fact having just been dumped by his girlfriend, barely credible pop star Jackie Q, Snow is now back on the booze and drugs in a big way. Thus, we join the pair on a hell bent journey of excess, personal breakdowns, missed flights, parent issues and a few destinations that were never on the itinerary.

Overall, Get him to the Greek is a good comedy with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments along with some credible sombre ones. Refreshingly, it also has enough originality to spare it from too many comparisons even though the ‘turbulent rock star’ sub genre must be close to death at this stage. This is largely thanks to an excellent overall cast and a convincing central performance from Brand (too real perhaps?). Jonah Hill too, is effortlessly natural and hugely likable in equally measure, finally getting to build on the talent we saw three years ago in Superbad. Most surprising perhaps, is the fine comic turn from former Puffser Sean Combs, who is hilarious as the power hungry/plain mad corporate suit and his performance is totally clear of the over baked irony you might have dreaded.

Get him to the Greek is a superior film to Forgetting Sarah Marshall; while that film had some great moments I felt it balanced them poorly against the romantic interest side and eventually lost its way completely as a result. Here it follows a similar narrative but never quite falls into that same trap. That said, the film does lose its momentum somewhat when the hijinx turns to morality lessons and thus can appear to be low points even when they don’t deserve to. Then again, I thought exactly the same thing about The Hangover and most people I know thought that was flawless. This is a film that won’t be to everyone’s comedy tastes but one that certainly carries more weight than your average weekend box office caper.