Fox 411 Movie Review: 'Due Date'
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With a meager ratio of jokes-to-laughs, “Due Date” winds up being only half a funny movie. Unfortunately, Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis run out of amusing material before they get halfway from Atlanta to Los Angeles by car.
Downey plays Peter, a tightly wrapped architect whose wife is back in California, about to give birth to their first child. Galifianakis is Ethan, the Hollywood-bound would-be actor he meets curbside at the Atlanta airport – and winds up sitting in front of on the airplane.
But not for long: Ethan cluelessly gets them both kicked off the plane and placed on a no-fly list. Peter reluctantly accepts a ride from Ethan, who has rented a Subaru to drive himself and his French bulldog Sunny to L.A.
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If you’ve seen the commercials for “Due Date,” you’ve seen most of the film’s funniest moments. Otherwise, you have to take what small pleasures you can from Downey’s slow-burn and Galifianakis’ bizarrely fey affect and random comments.
Downey is an actor who is constitutionally incapable of being uninteresting. The same is true of the delightfully subversive Galifianakis: He’s often funnier than the lines he’s given. But both of them can only do so much with a script that runs out of gags by the time they’re in Texas.
Downey and Galifianakis work it hard – but there’s just not much for them to work with in “Due Date.”
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