Get Him to the Greek
Russell Brand used to commentate from dancefloors in nightclubs in the 1990s for MTV. He produced some funny moments by interviewing punters who were often luvved-up, as the euphemism has it. Under the glare of the camera light Brand would pose them existentialist conundrums and similar abstract and convoluted propositions that their monged minds had no chance of assimilating. The joke was on them but it was all good fun and "no hard feelings guv". Although Brand’s physical image has changed over the years, the cheeky chappy from those MTV shows is still recognisable in the substance of what he talks about in his current shows, and of which this movie could be seen to be an extension.
Although Brand isn’t the only actor in this movie, Get Him to the Greek has all the hallmarks of being a vehicle for his talents. It puts one in mind of those movies that served as vehicles for such comedians or musicians as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin etc. In such movies the character of the crossover star is not markedly different from their actual public persona. In GHTTG, for example, Brand walks and talks in much the same way as he does in his "day-job" of stand up comic, and not much of the screenplay would be different if Brand played a comic gone to seed rather than a rockstar gone to seed. The movie thus cashes in on Brand’s big public profile and allows his fans to imagine a world where he is even more ubiquitous and visible and consequential. In a similar way, Sean Combs puts in a good performance as a record company boss, perhaps drawing on his personal experiences.
The movie’s directed by the producer of Superbad and Knocked Up and Brand’s foil is played by Jonah Hill, also of Knocked Up, among others. He and the rest of the cast do a good job, but their roles aren’t so demanding and the script and original music hold their own too. The pastiche pop songs that could never be because of their “adult content” have a fairly big role in the production, being referenced in the script as a running joke, for example, and this fairly complicated conceit holds up. This is backed up with several cameos of celebrities appearing as themselves and occasions where Aldous Snow (Brand's character) appears on real television programmes. All this sense of this being a parallel world is further developed in the many DVD bonus features. This is one of those DVDs that has two discs in the box so, whatever can be said about the quality, quantity is not an issue.