Get Him to the Greek

This comedy from the Judd Apatow factory reintroduces us to the memorable and messed-up rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) from the sweet 2008 hit "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." Snow has been upped from supporting player to co-lead as the unpredictable prey of an ambitious young record label executive, Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), who must find a way to get Snow from London to L.A. in three days for a major comeback concert at the Greek Theatre. Just about the best screen team since Butch met Sundance, Brand and Hill have an outrageous and hilarious blast that rocks and rolls with constant comedy. If you're searching for a movie loaded with edgy and sardonic humor, get yourself and your friends to the "Greek" as fast as you can. It'll prove to be this year's "Hangover," with over-the-top antics that occasionally go way over that top but generally hit the comic bull's-eye.

Brand's warm-up as Snow in "Sarah Marshall" pays big dividends here, as the actor and character are a now perfect match for carrying an entire movie. Snow is bigger than life, and Brand manages to make this near has-been—freaked out that he may be relegated to "greatest hits" status for the rest of his career—a three-dimensional and recognizable human being beneath all the shenanigans writer-director Nicholas Stoller (who directed "Sarah Marshall") serves up. It helps to have Hill playing straight man in a concept similar to "My Favorite Year." Snow is an undeniable legend, but his drinking and drug habits have made him a shadow of his former self, simultaneously determined to win back the love of his life, rock star Jackie Q (Rose Byrne). She's in L.A., and so is the Greek, the site of Snow's greatest career triumph a decade earlier. It's up to Green to get Snow there in shape to perform for a major multimedia comeback project. Of course, Snow does not make this easy, and that's where all the mayhem comes into play, including a big piece set in Las Vegas, so broadly played that it threatens to derail the movie's finely tuned comic rhythms. Fortunately, it's just a diversion, and the picture never really goes off the tracks.

Although it's largely Brand's and Hill's show, Byrne is on target as Snow's love, and Sean Combs is wryly funny, displaying great timing as Green's record-mogul boss, who sets the impossible mission in motion. "Mad Men" star Elisabeth Moss is also fine as Green's ever-faithful and frustrated girlfriend, who has one killer scene when she becomes the object of a riotous sexual tryst.

The purposely terrible musical numbers, including the hilariously atrocious "African Child," are alone worth the price of admission.

Genre: Comedy.

Written and directed by: Nicholas Stoller.

Starring: Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Rose Byrne, Sean Combs,
Elisabeth Moss.