While you may have heard how great Get Him to the Greek is, and that its co-stars, Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, enjoy “Would You Rather” more than they perhaps should, I wanted to offer my more in-depth take on the film.

As Jonah Hill said in the post-movie Q&A session Monday night, the film is made for “people our age” (20-somethings), and it definitely doesn’t pull any punches. That being said, I found it to be one of the more though provoking “road-trip” comedies I’ve seen.

The plot is simple. Aaron Green (Hill), a music industry intern, is tasked by his boss Sergio (Diddy – yes, that Diddy) to retrieve washed up rock-star Aldous Snow (Brand) from England and to get him to an anniversary concert at Los Angeles’ Greek Theater.

Most “road-trip” comedies feature the protagonists facing a series of random, somewhat unbelievable obstacles in the pursuit of their goal. Amazingly, this film never seemed to require much suspension of belief. There were still plenty of moments of insanity, including one scene featuring Diddy getting hit by a car, smoking a “Jeffrey”, furry walls, and a well timed Pulp Fiction reference that beat much of The Hangover for “funniest comedy sequence set in Las Vegas”. Still, all this made sense in the context of Brand’s character. You expect a rock-star to live the way Aldous Snow does, and the film delivers.

The film also stepped into darker territory than most comedies, with a running plot related to Snow’s heavy drug use. Brand, who struggled with drug-addiction in the past himself, brought a surprising amount of depth to this character in this regard. There was good balance of comedy and drama, which kept the film from sounding preachy, yet still being relatively realistic. This also slowed the pace somewhat, and at 2 hours, it’s a long comedy. I never felt I was getting bored, though.

There film also features dozens of cameos, from Tom Felton to Lars Ulrich, mostly playing parodied versions of themselves, which helped place the film in the context of the real music industry. Also, Russell Brand performs several songs throughout the film. While they aren’t anything groundbreaking, it’s some of the best movie-band music I’ve heard since Almost Famous‘ Stillwater.

Get Him to the Greek is out June 4th. I’d say its definitely worth checking out.

[Photo Credit: Melanie Versaw]