Get Him to the Greek

Intern Aaron Green wants to rise to the top of the music business. To do this, and impress his boss Sergio, he accepts the challenge of getting unruly rock star Aldous Snow from London to Los Angeles for an anniversary concert.

A film like Get Him to the Greek can be a challenge for an audience to watch. There were a number of absolutely hilarious sequences, usually involving Aaron cleaning up or covering for Aldous for any number of things including (but not limited to); hiding drugs in an unusual place or partaking of all of the drugs Aldous was carrying (in order to keep him clean) and destroying the set of The Today Show. Russell Brand was a hoot as Aldous, reprising a role most people remember him playing in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He behaved exactly like most people think rock stars behave and indulged in the drugs, money, debauchery and insanity excessive fame brings. The guy who stole the show however was Sean Combs (or P. Diddy as the kids still call him I think). As record executive Sergio, almost everything he did or said was hysterical, the best bit being when he joined Aldous, Aldous’ Dad and Aaron in partaking of a drug neapolitan called a “Jeffrey” and destroying a Las Vegas hotel room.

The challenge for the audience was trying to connect to any of the characters. Aldous was a morally bankrupt rock star that the audience wanted to root for but could not thanks to all of the horribly destructive things he did to himself and Aaron. He was a callous man, and even when he “found” himself via his music at the anniversary concert, the happy ending felt and hollow and tacked on. Aaron’s character arc was not any better. In his quest to get Aldous to Los Angeles he did some very bad things, all of which were conveniently pushed to the side when the time came to successfully patch things up with his girlfriend Daphine. Again, another tacked on happy ending that seemed to come out of nowhere.

There were a number of thing that made you laugh out loud in Get Him to the Greek, it is just too bad the film did not have the heart to make it a complete comedy.

Grade: C

Heat: Pacino vs. De Niro, what more do you need?

The lives of two men, at the opposite sides of the law, intersect when one, Neil McCauley, pulls off a heist which catches the attention of Lt. Vincent Hanna. Each one becomes obsessed with defeating the other while trying to maintain a semblance of a normal life.

The joy in watching a film like Heat comes from witnessing a pair of actors and a director at the top of their respective individual games. Though top heavy in characters, depth of story and plot, director Michael Mann masterfully orchestrated every facet of the film and unleashed an impressive crime thriller. A prime example of this was the bank robbery shootout sequence, which was set in downtown Los Angeles, between the cops and Neil’s crew. Not only was it epic in its scale, intensity and realism but it was an integral part of the plot and moved the story forward rather than serving as a useless action piece (which seems to be a normal occurrence in most recently released crime thrillers). For their parts, Pacino and De Niro elevated the film, turning it into an almost mythical showdown between good and evil. Pacino’s Lt. Vincent Hanna snarled and stomped his way through his scenes, never apologizing for what he was, a man on a mission to stop the bad guy no matter what the cost. De Niro’s Neil McCauley was just as intense as Hanna, but never let that intensity get the best of him because he was a professional. True film scholars could spend pages upon pages pontificating upon the scene where Hanna and McCauley chat in a diner but it is easiest just to say that it was incredible to witness two actors take a simple scene and turn it into something more, a pseudo - showdown in which both confess respect for the other but promise to show no quarter when the time comes for a final confrontation.

Both Pacino and De Niro could have carried the movie on their own, their individual performances were that good, but together they combined to make Heat something more than the typical crime thriller.

Grade: B