Get Him to the Greek

About two years ago a movie was released called “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” It was a gross out romantic comedy produced by Judd Apatow, the reigning king of that particular genre with credits such as “Knocked Up,” “Super Bad,” and “Funny People.” Apatow has produced another film from the director and writer of “…Marshall” called “Get Him to the Greek,” a spinoff film that takes a supporting character from “…Marshall” and makes an entire movie around him. The results are more of the same: a hard ‘R’ comedy but this time with a bit more of a sweet center.

The plot revolves around Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), who works for a struggling record company and has the bright idea of bringing back one time legendary English rocker Alduous Snow (Russell Brand) for a 10 year reunion concert at The Greek theatre in Los Angeles. Snow has been off the wagon for a while, turning to drugs and alcohol after releasing a bomb of an album and losing his long term girlfriend. Aaron’s boss Sergio (Sean Combs) tells him that he must go to England and retrieve Alduous, bringing him to the theatre on time for his concert.

“Get Him to the Greek” offers several staples from the world of Judd Apatow. including plenty of inappropriate behavior. The lead roles are played by two actors who usually play supporting roles in other films, but they do a serviceable job with the extra screen time. The most successful comic moments in the film come from Sean “P. Diddy” Combs as record company president Sergio Roma. Combs proves to have excellent comic timing, and his role is clearly patterned after the profane turn by Tom Cruise in “Tropic Thunder,” a role for which he received several nominations.

The two main characters in the film couldn’t be more different. Aaron is in a committed relationship with his long time girlfriend, while Snow lives with a “devil may care” attitude. Their lifestyles clash in their whirlwind weekend together. This does lead to some rather humorous “fish out of water” moments, but that’s not the main source of “humor” in the film.

That source would be a weekend that results in copious amounts of gratuitous sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. In their three days together. Snow has sex with multiple women, makes Aaron smuggle heroin for him, gives him a mixture of drugs with which to experiment, and also treats him to some absinthe. All of this is portrayed for a comic effect or to show the cool, out of control lifestyle of a real rocker.

After sitting through over an hour of such debauchery, I couldn’t wait for this film to be over. That’s probably why I almost fell out of my chair when I witnessed one of the better redemptive messages I’ve seen from a movie of this kind. As Snow hits rock bottom, he starts to bargain to regain control of his life, saying he could quit specific abuses of his. One character in the movie says the line, “You can make anything heroin, Alduous”, pointing to the fact that Snow has moved from one vice to another and quitting anything specific would only be a surface solution to a much deeper problem. A complete change in lifestyle is needed, and one occurs. Snow realizes that he can no longer live the way he has been and makes a 180 degree turn around.

It’s a fantastic message, but there are two problems. One is that there are much better ways to showcase a great message with somewhat milder content. More importantly, the message becomes more than just a little bit hypocritical to the audience when they have just been asked to laugh hysterically at something, then are told how terrible that thing actually is.

So what does this all mean? It certainly means that the content of “Get Him to the Greek” is extreme and isn’t for most. It also means that there is a brief moment of positive reflection amidst all of the filth. Does that make it worth the Christian viewer’s time? Not likely. I can say that it puts this film miles ahead of films like “The Hangover”, “Hot Tub Time Machine”, and “MacGruber” which have immorality just for the sake of immorality. That doesn’t mean it gets a pass for its content or an endorsement by this reviewer, but it does give us as Christians a point of redemption that we can use to point non Christian viewers to the Gospel.

Violence: Heavy / Profanity: Extreme / Sex/Nudity: Extreme

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