Due Date
Directed By: Todd Phillips
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Zach Galifinakis, Michelle Monaghan, Juliette Lewis, Jamie Foxx, and Danny McBride
Studio: Warner
Year: 2010
Rated: R
Film Length: 95 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 2.4:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Release Date: February 22, 2010
The Film ***
Due Date is a road comedy focusing on the mis-matched pairing of prickly uptight architect Peter Highman (Downey) and determinedly incompetent aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay (Galifinakis). Peter's plans to return from a business trip in time to be at his wife's (Monaghan) side in Los Angeles for the birth of their first child is upended when a series of misunderstandings set in motion by man-child Ethan at an Atlanta airport find Peter without his wallet or luggage and both Peter and Ethan on a TSA no-fly list. Unable to fly or even rent a car, Peter is forced to accept a cross country ride from Ethan, who frustrates and infuriates him at nearly every turn. Through the course of their odyssey, they cross paths with a pot-selling mother (Lewis), a cranky Western Union employee (McBride), and an old friend of Peter's who is in unusually regular contact with his wife (Foxx). Ethan's propensity for disaster and Peter's mounting anger result in an ever-escalating series of farcical disasters along the way.
Due Date is director Todd Phillips' follow-up his hugely successful The Hangover. While The Hangover caught audiences by surprise with its novel "Memento for binge drinkers" premise, Due Date attaches its escalatingly outrageous gags to a very conventional "odd couple" road trip narrative. With a warhorse plot structure that has been recycled on a regular basis since It Happened One Night swept the major Oscar categories in 1935, Due Date's only chance at surprising an audience lies with how outrageous it is willing to let the aforementioned gags get. The results prove to be a bit hit and miss, with most of the hits coming in the films' first half as we get to know the characters and their various dysfunctions.
To be fair, not all of the film's humor derives from shock and surprise. Robert Downey Jr. has excellent comic instincts and proves as adept in the straight man role as he has proven to be in more eccentric center of attention parts in the past. He and Galifinakis have an easy chemistry that helps smooth over some of the rougher sequences requiring them to deviate extravagantly from recognizable human behavior for the sake of the film's plot. Lower key throwaway lines attuned to Galifinakis' comic sensibilities frequently come off funnier than the gags involving drugs, masturbation, and human remains. Galifinakis is even saddled with a canine companion that he manages to upstage. If animal actors could speak, they would probably develop an adage about how animals should avoid working with kids and Zach Galifinakis.
Unfortunately, Director Phillips never quite finds the right balance to satisfy his desire to combine comic shock and awe with the development of a "bromantic" friendship between the film's leads, with the scales almost always tipped heavily in favor of the former. This causes the film to become less and less interesting as it attempts to gather its plot threads together and resolve them by the final reel. Viewers will likely have a tough time swallowing the erratic twists and turns in the relationship arc between Peter and Ethan as the film does not commit much time and energy into earning them. A late surprise revelation comes across more like desperate wheel spinning than the reason for reconsideration of the film's prior events that it should have been.
With this criticism aside, the film does have several laugh out loud funny moments and something to offend nearly every sensibility. As has been the case in previous films from Phillips, the film also makes good use of its high-profile supporting cast in comic cameos.
The Video *****
The video comes courtesy of an AVC encoded 1080p presentation letterboxed to the film's original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.4:1. The video quality is outstanding with a very textured film-like presentation that is exactly what one should be looking for in a home theater presentation. Detail is uniformly excellent, video artifacts are imperceptible, colors are appropriately saturated whether natural or manipulated, and blacks are deep and true. This is one of the best Blu-ray video presentations I have reviewed in a long time.
The Audio ***½
Audio comes courtesy of a DTS HD-MA lossless 5.1 track. The underlying mix is a slightly above average mix for a talky comedy with surrounds used at rare instances for specific effects and light LFE enhancements employed strategically to effects like car crashes. Alternate language dubs are available in Dolby Digital 5.1 in Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
The Extras **
When the disc is first played, the viewer is greeted with the following skippable promos in 1080p high definition:
Warner Blu-ray promo (1:53 - AVC Codec - Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio)
WB Insider Rewards Promo (1:18 - VC-1 Codec - Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio)
Mortal Kombat Video Game Trailer (1:16 - AVC Codec - Dolby Digital 2.0 Audio)
Hall Pass Theatrical Trailer (2:33 - AVC Codec - Dolby Digital 2.0 Audio)
Proper extras are accessible from the disc main menu under the "Special Features" heading. They are presented in AVC encoded 1080p video with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound.
The Complete Two and a Half Men Scene featuring Ethan Tremblay (3:02) Presents the scene where Galifinakis' character participates in his favorite TV show in an extended form and free of teh intercutting that occurs in the film.
Deleted Scenes (3:55) is a collection of three sequences either cut or substantially trimmed from the final film. They are not accessible separately from the disc's menu, but they are each afforded their own chapter stops:
Extended enthusiastic Two and a Half Men discussion between Peter and Ethan
Extended diner discussion between Peter and Ethan
Peter jokingly tries to kiss Ethan in the Border Patrol truck
Gag Reel (6:31) is a typically amusing but slight collection of out-takes and bloopers consisting of the usual mix of flubbed lines, corpsing, and goofing-off on-camera.
Due Date: Too Many Questions (:41) is a near-pointless rapid-fire montage of Ethan asking Peter various annoying to him/amusing to viewers questions.
Due Date: Action Mash-up (:30) is a beyond-pointless rapid-fire montage of action beats from the film.
BD Live - The disc provides a link to Warner's BD Live portal, but other than the ability to host a screening, the only feature related to Due Date is a streaming version of the Action Mash-up feature also available on the disc.
SD DVD & Digital Copy - As is the case with all recent Warner BDs of theatrical new release titles, a separate disc is included with an SD DVD of the film and a digital copy. The DVD presentation is bare bones with the film in 16:9 enhanced widescreen video, English Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, and available English SDH, French, or Spanish subtitles. It has neither extras nor a chapter menu. The video presentation is marred by some mpeg noise artifacts around the edges of moving objects which will be especially noticeable on large screen projection set-ups, but hopefully anyone buying this release will have a Blu-ray player hooked up to their projector.
The digital copy is on-disc, and is compatible with either iTunes or Windows Media formats. It is unlocked through the use of a one-time password provided on a paper insert to the disc case.
Packaging
The disc is enclosed in a standard Blu-ray case with die-cut holes to reduce plastic use and an extra hub on the inner left side allowing it to accommodate the SD DVD/digital copy disc as well as the BD of the film. The only inserts are a BD-Live information sheet and a sheet with the code to unlock the iTunes or Windows Media digital copy. The hard case is enclosed in a cardboard slipcover which reproduces the same art with additional promotional text highlighting the SD DVD & digital copy.
Summary ***
Due Date is a road comedy that pairs Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifinakis on a cross country jaunt filled with misadventures and comedy pushing the boundaries of good taste. Director Todd Phillips gets some laughs due to a talented cast and an anything goes approach to outrageous gags, but the film never quite makes you believe in its characters and runs out of gas in its last half-hour as it tries to tie up its flimsy plot threads. It is presented on Blu-ray disc with reference-quality video, solid if unremarkable lossless surround audio, and extras that are large in number but shallow in depth. A separate disc is included with SD DVD and digital copy versions of the feature.
