Anal-retentive Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) is an architect waiting on the birth of his first child back home in California. Ethan “Tremblay” (Zach Galifianakis) is a wannabe actor flying out to Hollywood with his French bulldog Sunny. Fate – and “a lot of bit” of Ethan’s self-absorbed and unconscionable behavior – conspires to get the two thrown off the same plane and on the “No Fly” list. Peter’s wallet goes missing, and the two pair up for a cross-country trip in a rental car to make it back in time for the birth of Peter’s first born.
Peter and Ethan mix like oil and water throughout the trip. The 2,000 mile road trip focuses on one main concept: Ethan’s continual ability to irritate Peter and Peter’s outrageous reactions to Ethan. As the friendship develops, both men end up letting their guard down and have true bonding moments that are surprising in their depth.
When it comes to a mismatched pair comedy such as Due Date, two things are fundamental: good chemistry between the leads and a story that takes advantage of it. Unfortunately for Due Date, it does have a well-working cast, but they aren’t given much to work with. The film sets up its gags in bland and inoffensive ways. This only works for the hour and a half film because Downey and Galifianakis work extremely well together. It had more boring bits than it should have. A friend of mine even fell asleep!
The biggest problem was that there wasn’t much there for the two to work with, like Zach had in the “The Hangover,” although he is playing an oddly similar character. The film’s entire comedy lineup isn’t clever nor is it cleverly disguised. The attempts at signature comedic moments get in the way of the story rather than enhancing in. We would rather see Peter and Ethan interacting “naturally” and getting into comedic situations, rather than getting into wacky situations for comedic relief from the boring nature of the rest of the film. Due Date just didn’t reach its full potential.
On its opening day, November 5, 2010, in the American box offices Due Date rounded up $12,230,000 in sales. With a 40% rating on Rottentomatoes.com, the film received a “Splat” from professional reviewers and members of the website.
