So, over on that wonderful black hole called TV Tropes (seriously, once you go on there, you lose hours of your life before you manage to pull yourself away) they have a trope listing entitled Chekhov's Gun. The trope namer for this article is a quote from Anton Chekhov, which is listed at the top of the page: "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." Basically, if you draw attention to an object, it damn well better get used at some point later.
After seeing Due Date, it occurred to me that TV Tropes should probably also have an article entitled "Chekhov's Dead Loved One." Whenever the physical remains of a dearly departed relative appear in a comedy (especially in ash form), you instantly know that there will be some sort of humorous desecration later in the film. Ashes will be spilled and/or unknowingly ingested, bodies will fall out of coffins, and there will be shock and consternation and possibly fainting if there are older ladies present. And oh, how the audience will laugh - unless, of course, it's not actually that funny, which it frequently isn't. (But let's be honest, the audience will probably laugh anyway, because the average modern movie-goer is a complete jackass. This has been proven by science, and by the continuing success of Tyler Perry's godawful cinematic abortions.)
The thing is, a Chekhov's Gun exists solely to add to the plot. A Chekhov's Urn (for lack of a better term) seems to exist for comedy's sake first, and any actual significance to the plot is tacked on to justify the joke. [EDIT: Holy crap it's real.] And that's what a lot of Due Date feels like: as if someone said, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny/wacky/gross if Zach Galifianakis did {X}?" and then they had to come up with a way to justify having {X} in the movie at all.
This movie will undoubtedly draw comparisons to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles because it's basically the same movie: an easily frustrated straight man and a zany, overweight nutcase embark on a cross-country trip to get the straight man home to his family for an important event (a holiday dinner in the old movie, and the birth of a child in the new one). And how does it stack up?
Well... Here's the thing. I'm a bit biased here, because I have a tendency to believe that everything Robert Downey Jr. touches turns to solid gold. He is incredibly talented, and has a huge range of personal experience to draw upon. Most of his characters have a snarky, tongue-in-cheek edge to them, which certainly contributes to my enjoyment of his movies, but he also has the ability to bring a surprising amount of believability into his performances. Yes, Tony Stark is a rich alcoholic douchebag with a badass suit of armor, and Sherlock Holmes is a witty, high-functioning autistic savant with possible homosexual tendencies and a drug addiction, but the characters are even more engaging because Downey imbues them with an undeniable humanity. They sure as hell test the limits of the public's willing suspension of disbelief, but they never completely cross into the realm of cartoon or caricature. Beneath their artifice, addictions, and sarcasm, they are as vulnerable as the rest of us - if not more so. This character is no exception: he's fun to watch, has some great monologues, and he's easy enough to relate to that the audience can feel his (often literal) pain.
And then there's Zach Galifianakis. He plays pretty much the exact same person he did in The Hangover, except with a greater disconnect from social norms. His character is written less as a lovable oddball and more as a complete fucking lunatic with little to no knowledge of human customs and behavior. I'm sure this is very entertaining to a great many people, but this is where the movie loses me: his character goes beyond "zany" and lands well inside the realm of "complete and utter caricature". He's not a person; he's a twisted sketch of a human being, smeared in feces on a padded cell wall by a disturbed mental patient on one of the moons of Saturn. I would use the phrase "jumping the shark", except after seeing the movie I can't help but think how much that sounds like a euphemism for public masturbation. Do not want.
In any case, the movie is frequently entertaining, but believability is really a problem. Dinner for Schmucks (which also co-starred Galifianakis) suffered from the same ailment: people ceased to be people and started becoming cartoons. The thing with absurd comedy is that it works best in short-form - i.e. stand-up or sketches. You have to keep raising the stakes for it to keep being funny, and it's damn near impossible to do that when you're also trying to throw in a message about the importance of family: you either make the whole movie completely absurd, or you tone it down and keep it within the bounds of the suspension of disbelief.
But hell, a lot of this is a matter of taste. The funniest movie I can think of offhand is In Bruges, and that's not even really a comedy - but maybe that's why it's so funny.
Food for thought, I suppose.
....
(Nom nom nom.)
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