Following in the footsteps of Steve Martin and John Candy in John Hughes’ 1987 road movie comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis play Hollywood’s latest mismatched travelling companions, a very odd couple yoked together on a hellacious (for them) but hilarious (for us) cross-country journey.
Downey Jr plays frazzled businessman Peter Highman, who’s anxious to get back home to his wife in Los Angeles in time for the birth of their first child. Attempting to catch a flight from Atlanta, however, he inadvertently gets mixed up with irritating wannabe actor Ethan (Galifianakis) and ends up thrown off the plane and sharing a chaotic, disaster-strewn car ride with him across country.
Peter and Ethan are not people you’d care to have sitting next to you on the shortest of bus trips, let alone a 2,000-mile car journey, but even though writer-director Todd Phillips, maker of runaway hit The Hangover, pushes our sympathy for them to the limits, the inspired comic playing of Downey Jr and Galifianakis ensures that Due Date is well worth the ride.
Released on DVD, Blu-ray & Triple Play Blu-ray by Warner Home Video.