Due Date – review

Having scored a commercial smash with his fratboy comedy The Hangover, and with Hangover 2 in the works – currently testing the boundaries of hip irony with a now abandoned plan to give Mel Gibson a cameo – hopes were high for this new movie by Todd Phillips. Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis play uptight architect Peter Highman and dopey wannabe actor Ethan Tremblay. This odd couple are forced to take a road trip together in horribly uncomfortable proximity, desperate to get back to Los Angeles in time for Peter's wife Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) to have her baby – much like Steve Martin and John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Of course, the unspeakable Ethan does many appalling things, and there are some nice moments, but the comedy mostly doesn't come off and there is no double-act chemistry between Downey and Galifianakis. Peter is not merely uptight, but actually pretty obnoxious himself: at one stage he actually punches a small boy in the stomach, which on paper might have looked like a black comedy laugh-riot, but on screen is pretty misjudged, especially as the dynamic depends on Ethan being the transgressive one. Danny McBride has a goodish cameo as a Western Union employee who discomfits our heroes, and Jamie Foxx plays Peter's buddy Darryl, who once dated Sarah – a sketchily, unsatisfyingly conceived character. Well … let's see how Hangover 2 pans out.