Get Him to the Greek

 

Russell Brand's turn as reclusive rock star Aldous Snow does little to stretch the comedian. The character, first seen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, sticks close to Brand's usual stage persona: louche and wanton, but cut through with sharp self-analysis and intellectual one-upmanship worthy of Pseuds Corner (while being chased down a long hotel corridor he shouts: “It's Kubrickian!"). He even gets to keep his dandyish clothes and finger-in-a-light-socket hair. Jonah Hill is suitably conflicted as the innocent, charged with shepherding his drug- and sex-fuelled idol to a comeback gig at the Greek Theatre in LA, who finds himself dragged into a world of rock 'n' roll excess. This often funny, always vulgar comedy keeps the self-obsessed Snow plausible enough to maintain a satirical edge, but it is Sean “P. Diddy” Combs who, in a film-stealing turn as the music exec from hell, provides perhaps a more authentic glimpse of the unhinged avarice and egotism that drives the entertainment business. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]