Get Him to the Greek... Review

Okay, so when I do movie reviews I am very careful. I love expressing my honest opinion about film. I enjoy articulating the exact emotion I felt when I emerged from the darkness of the theater- into the bright light of the hallway- and had the inevitable "What the fuck did I just watch" moment. At the same time, I aspire to one day do business with these very people whom I may be criticizing, so I definitely want to monitor my words. For example, I'd love to have Jonah Hill ("Superbad", "Funny People", "Knocked Up") say to me (insert Jonah Hill impersonating voice) "Dude, you should totally do this movie with me, bro". I've always dreamed of Sean "P. Diddy" Combs ("Monsters Ball", "A Raisin in the Sun") giving me a record deal. I would HATE to have to blast either one of these cats for making an un-watchable film....
Well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do...
"Get Him to the Greek" is a film starring the aforementioned Hill as a record industry exec who works for Combs. To improve business, he comes up with the idea to promote a once in a lifetime concert- headlined by Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", the horrible-est MTV video Awards show in history). The problem is that Snow is a burnt out, egomaniacal psychopath- who is hell-bent on destroying the scarce remnants of his life. Oh, and did I mention Hill has 48 hours to get him from London to Los Angeles. Let the hilarity ensue...
Not so fast.
As with any "odd couple on a journey" storyline, the laughs are almost built-in. The only thing that can possibly destroy the formula is bad acting.
This film is chock full of it.
Sean Combs seems out of place. His comedic timing needs a metronome. It is painfully obvious that he is improvising a large portion of his dialogue, and the lines that he is not improvising seem forced. Jonah Hill's usual "I'm just a dude who's saying stuff" style to acting (which is normally pretty damn awesome), seems to stumble at times in this film. With that being said, the scenes featuring he and Combs are down right clumsy. The sole saving grace comes in the form of Brand- who delivers a laugh out loud performance. This, his second crack at the role of Aldous Snow- was a breath of fresh air in a stinker of a movie.
The writing was also surprisingly bad. Jason Segal ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall") and Judd Apatow (any funny movie of the last five years) are usually dead on with the situational comedy. But this film featured hollow characters (Hill has an irrelevant romantic side-plot), cliche' homosexual inuendo, and implausible plot development. The entire time, I was expecting more of a tie-in to "Sarah Marshall"- but other than one clever reference- it was almost as if we were to 'forget' about Hill and Brand's legendary interaction in the 2009 pic. It just seemed like a wasted opportunity to grab comedic gold.
Verdict:
Wait til it comes on DVD, put it in your Netflix cue, and watch it with a person who you really, really wanna have sex with. That way you'll know he/she won't be distracted by his/her interest in the movie. You will have undivided attention. It will be almost as if the TV isn't even on...
2 out of 5 stars.

P.S... To anybody mentioned in this review: No hard feelings (awkward chuckle)... Can we still work together?