Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) needs to get home to be there for the birth of his first child in Los Angeles. Unfortunately though today he will encounter Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifanakis), who ends up getting him kicked off his flight and put on a no-fly list.  Peter also loses his wallet and luggage and is put at the mercy of the most child-like mindless travel buddy as he drives across country with Ethan to make it to the hospital on time.

For all of you who’ve seen the trailer and immediately saw Planes, Trains and Automobiles you are all correct.  This film is pretty much a remake of the famed John Hughes film with Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifanakis being thrust into the very same scenario that Steve Martin and John Goodman were just over two decades ago. The only differences between the films are: a. Todd Phillips was allowed to do as much crude and foul-mouthed humour as he wanted (and you expect) instead of Hughes who could only cram it into one scene; and b. there isn’t the general contempt for the transit industry of America in Due Date that there was in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. So the question is whether it’s worth heading out to the theatre rather than staying in and popping in your DVD copy of the 80s unofficial original? My answer is yes it’s worth it.

What makes this movie work is that you don’t feel sympathetic to either of these guys as the film goes along, or at the very least the sympathy shifts from one character to the next throughout the film and you never are lambasting one character that doesn’t deserve it at that specific moment. So we start out with these two meeting and Galifanakis screws Downey so we are ok with Downey being horrid to Galifanakis; but then we feel bad for him so when Downey gets screwed over by some ridiculous thing that Galifanakis does we then feel he deserves it. It’s basically a vicious cycle that you can’t help but just laugh at.

So when the movie begins to come to a close and after all of these experiences that these two people have had together are said and done and they are shaking hands and admitting to each other that they are pretty much friends now we don’t so much misunderstand, we just smile and think that’s nice.

Overall the movie is a fun, not as great at Todd Phillips’ previous film (The Hangover) but still really funny. The film is just filled with enough moments of these two guys getting screwed over enough that you can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. You’ve seen it before but at the same time it’s still really funny. I’m sure that when it hits DVD I’m sure that Planes, Trains and Automobiles will win with me watching that in my personal viewing time, but at the same time I still liked seeing this raunchier version of that movie.

IMDB says 7.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 39%

I say 7.0/10