By Scott Muoio

Get Him to the Greek is a repetitive bore. With each fifteen-minute block it’s as if Yogi Berra’s famous quote has come to life: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Indeed, instead of naming this film Get Him to the Greek it just as accurately and more ridiculously could have been titled, Fifteen Nearly Identical Ways to Almost But Not Quite Sabotage a Rock Star’s Comeback Concert. But alas, brevity in nomenclature is the Hollywood way so we are left with both an unmemorable film and film title.

The very basic story involves one Aldous Snow (goofy British comic Russell Brand), a notorious rock star whose partying ways are as well known and definitely more respected than his music. A “monogamous” seven-year relationship to fellow pop star, Jackie Q put Aldous on the wagon, crippling his notorious party ways. A vicious split later and Aldous instantly resumes his crown as Britain’s most rowdy wild man womanizing party maniac. Enter Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), a fan boy music lover who works as a talent scout for Sean P. Diddy Combs, who plays himself, and awfully I might add. Green’s idea: dig Aldous from the moth balls in order to stage an anniversary concert to celebrate and replicate the wacky one’s pinnacle achievement: a concert at the same venue some ten years earlier. The twist: Aaron is a square whose recent split with his long time girlfriend runs counter point to Aldous’ womanizing, drug induced haze. Will Aaron be able to drag Aldous from London to a New York Today Show appearance and subsequent concert at the Greek Theater, or will Aldous’ nonchalant procrastination and party all the time hi-jinx sabotage Green’s big chance at pleasing Diddy and moving up the corporate ladder? Does anyone care?

Absurd antics ensue culminating in Aldous persuading Green to smuggle heroin in his anus at Los Angeles airport, an egregious cameo by my least favorite character in the entire music world, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, and of course Aldous finding his old form and wowing the crowd at his comeback concert. Oh, joy.

Overall, the movie is silly, repetitive, and drags where it should soar. But the idea is good and there are enough begrudging laughs that’s its hard to hate the film because of how hard it tries to make the viewer laugh. This is a film that would work well to pass the time on a plane- fine for the moment and nothing more.

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Producer: Judd Apatow, Joshua Blake, Nicholas Stoller, David Bushell, Rodney Rothman

Writer: Nicholas Stoller

Starring: Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Elisabeth Moss, Rose Byrne, Diddy, Colm Meaney

Original Music: Lyle Workman

Cinematographer: Robert Yeoman

Editor: William Kerr, Michael Sale