Due Date

An uneven yet affable piece of work, Due Date follows harried architect Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) as his ongoing efforts at getting home to his pregnant wife (Michelle Monaghan’s Sarah) are consistently foiled – with his companion virtually every step of the way a loud-mouthed struggling actor named Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis). There’s little doubt that Due Date gets off to an almost disastrously underwhelming start, as director Todd Phillips, working from a script cowritten with Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, and Adam Sztykiel, offers up a series of eye-rollingly broad comedic set pieces that are both unfunny and without any basis in reality (ie Peter receives a beating from a wheelchair-bound redneck, Ethan laughs hysterically after Peter tells him a sad story about his father, etc). Even through its more aggressively obnoxious stretches, however, Due Date never quite becomes the unwatchable trainwreck one might’ve anticipated due primarily to Downey Jr.’s efforts – as the actor turns in an impressively layered performance that is, from start to finish, nothing short of captivating. (And although Galifianakis too often falls back on his ostentatiously off-kilter shtick, the comedian fares much better here than he did in The Hangover and actually does a decent job with the film’s dramatic moments.) By the time the movie reaches its surprisingly engrossing final half hour, Due Date has established itself as a passable endeavor that hopefully marks a new phase in Phillips’ career.

**1/2 out of ****