Peter Highman is getting ready to fly back home to Los Angeles from his business trip in Atlanta for the birth of his first child with wife Sarah. When he unfortunately meets Ethan Tremblay an aspiring actor he his blacklisted from flying when their bags get swapped and most face a truly awful cross country trip with him to get home.
If you think of comedy films from the past ten years this probably ticks all of the boxes for what you would expect in the film. With Zach Galifianakis rehashing the same role we have seen him do in so many comedies since the success of The Hangover (which I am not a fan of). I did however decide to give this one a second chance with my love for Robert Downey Jr.
Whether or not that is a good thing I am still very undecided as it is quite frankly not a very funny film. It is frustrating as we side with Peter and wonder just how and why Ethan can be so pathetic towards another human being. Yes, seriously it will make you think and feel like that. Each horrible moment followed by the next is a very poor attempt to recreate the magic from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, something that I don't think is ever possible to be brutally honest.
Comedy films now always seem to have to have drugs in them at some point and another reason I switch off. If you have to resort to someone getting high for a few poor laughs then you are doing comedy wrong in my opinion. Even Jamie Foxx briefly coming into the mix could not save any part of this film for me. I often wonder why I keep giving this genre a chance especially when it does not look good to begin with.
Peter was stuck with Ethan mainly because of his wallet going missing with his money, credit cards and drivers licence all inside. Obviously Ethan has it on him the whole time because he is lonely. But his behaviour and attitude is the reason he is alone, so no sympathy is available and then the gun being involved as well.
Talk about way too far!
I guess it left me wondering just why Robert Downey Jr felt this was a good idea, as his career was certainly on the up by this point. Maybe I just need to add Galfianakis on my don't bother watching list as he is just terrible. Although that does feel harsh maybe if they actually gave him a chance to change to a slightly different character every once in a while then it wouldn't actually be as bad?