''Due Date'' is a 2010 American

black comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

road film directed by Todd Phillips, who wrote the screenplay with Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, and Adam Sztykiel. The film follows a man ( Robert Downey Jr.) who must get across the country to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

in time for the birth of his child and is forced to road-trip with an aspiring actor ( Zach Galifianakis). Michelle Monaghan, Juliette Lewis, and Jamie Foxx also star. Shot in Las Cruces, New Mexico,

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

, and

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal Plain, Gulf Coastal and Piedmont (United States), Piedm ...

, the film was released on November 5, 2010. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $211 million worldwide.

Plot

Peter Highman, a successful architect, is due to fly home from Atlanta to Los Angeles to be with his wife Sarah, who is about to give birth. On the way to the airport, he has a chance encounter with Ethan Tremblay with his dog Sonny, who is going to Los Angeles to be an actor and is planning to scatter his recently deceased father's ashes at the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon Nati ...

. When Ethan misuses the words "

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

" and "bomb" while talking to Peter, they are both escorted off the plane. Peter, now on the No Fly List and missing his wallet, agrees to drive with Ethan to Los Angeles. Ethan stops to buy

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

, and Peter discovers that they are nearly out of money. Since Peter has no I.D., he gets his wife to wire money to Ethan, but discovers Ethan had the money wired to his stage name instead of his legal name. When the Western Union employee refuses to accept Ethan's "Stage name I.D." it leads to a violent altercation. After a night at a rest stop, Peter decides to drive off and abandon Ethan, but realizes that he has forgotten to unload the ashes of Ethan's father when he left. This causes him to wrestle with his conscience, before deciding to return, and covering for his absence by saying he had gone to buy breakfast. Ethan takes over driver duty so Peter can get some rest after a sleepless night, but he falls asleep at the wheel and crashes the car. Peter calls his friend, Darryl, for assistance and decides to part with Ethan, but Darryl persuades Peter otherwise. They arrive at Darryl's house for rest. During their conversation, Ethan discovers hints that Sarah may have been unfaithful, triggering Peter to question Sarah's timely pregnancy. Darryl throws both of them out after mistakenly drinking some of Ethan's father's ashes, which were stored in a coffee tin. Darryl lets them use his Range Rover to make the rest of the trip. Ethan and Peter get high and begin to bond, but Ethan then mistakenly drives to the Mexico–United States border. Despite assuring Peter that he'll handle the situation, Ethan flees, and Peter is arrested for possession of marijuana. The Mexican Federal Police lock Peter up, but Ethan steals a truck and breaks him out, causing several car crashes in the process. Peter decides to stop at the

for Ethan, who finally scatters his father's ashes. Peter then confesses that he tried to leave Ethan at the rest area. Ethan makes a confession of his own: he has had Peter's wallet and I.D the entire time. Peter seemingly forgives him but then attacks Ethan in a rage, but is interrupted by a call from Sarah, who has just gone into labor. Peter and Ethan leave for California. Ethan finds a gun in the truck and he accidentally shoots Peter. Arriving at the hospital where Sarah is in labor, Peter passes out from loss of blood. Sarah delivers the baby safely, and Peter expresses his discomfort at his new daughter being named Rosie Highman. Ethan leaves to meet with a Hollywood agent while telling Peter to call him. At the end, Ethan guest stars on an episode of his favorite television program, '' Two and a Half Men'', with Peter and Sarah watching it in bed with their daughter. Ethan texts Peter during the episode, indicating that the two have become friends.

Cast

* Robert Downey Jr. as Peter Highman * Zach Galifianakis as Ethan Tremblay / Ethan Chase * Michelle Monaghan as Sarah Highman * Juliette Lewis as Heidi (playing the same character from '' Old School'') * Jamie Foxx as Darryl Johnson * Matt Walsh as TSA Agent * RZA as Airline Screener * Danny McBride as Western Union Employee Lonnie * Todd Phillips as Barry * Mimi Kennedy as Sarah's Mom * Keegan-Michael Key as New Father * Aaron Lustig as Dr. Greene * Marco Rodríguez as Federal Agent * Brody Stevens as Chauffeur *

Charlie Sheen Carlos Irwin Estévez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. He is known as a leading man in film and television. Sheen has received numerous accolades including a Golden Globe Award as well as ...

as Charlie Harper (Cameo) *

Jon Cryer Jonathan Niven Cryer (born April 16, 1965) is an American actor. Born into a show business family, he made his film debut with a lead role in ''No Small Affair'' (1984); his breakout role was as Duckie in the John Hughes (filmmaker), John Hughe ...

as Alan Harper (Cameo) * Angus T. Jones as Jake Harper (Cameo)

Marketing

The first trailer was released July 14, 2010. It was seen with '' Inception'', '' Dinner for Schmucks'' and '' The Other Guys''. The international trailer was released on September 2, 2010, and the full length trailer was released online on September 16, 2010. It was shown before '' The Town'', and '' Life as We Know It''. Previews for the film feature the songs "New Moon Rising" by Wolfmother and the original version of " Check Yo Self" by Ice Cube. In the film, Ethan is a huge fan of the sitcom ''Two and a Half Men''. He also mentions that he started a website calle
itsrainingtwoandahalfmen.com
As a joke, a website was actually launched with the same name. Ethan is also shown in the film as guest starring in a ''Two and a Half Men'' episode. This was a special short produced for the film's use, and did not become part of an official episode of the sitcom. The short was partially shown in the film and the full short i
available online

Music

''Due Date (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)'' was released on November 2, 2010 by WaterTower Music.

iTunes version

; Additional songs The following songs are not included in the soundtrack, but they appear in some parts of the film: * Closing Time – Danny McBride * Mykonos – Fleet Foxes * Old Man ( Live at Massey Hall) –

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...

* Hey You –

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experiments ...

* Theme from '' Two and a Half Men''

Release

Box office

''Due Date'' grossed $100.5 million in the U.S. and Canada and $111.2 million in other territories for a total of $211.8 million worldwide, against a production budget of $65 million. The film earned $12.2 million at the North American domestic box office on its release day and $43.5 million on its first week, placing behind '' Megamind'' but was number one in the UK for two consecutive weekends. On November 8, 2010, it went up to #1 overtaking ''Megamind''. On November 12, it went down to #3 behind '' Unstoppable'' and ''Megamind''. On November 15, it went up to #2 behind ''Unstoppable''. On November 24, it went down to #8 behind '' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1'', '' Tangled'', '' Burlesque'', ''Megamind'', '' Love & Other Drugs'', ''Unstoppable'' and '' Faster''. It closed in theaters on January 27, 2011.

Home media

''Due Date'' was released on DVD and

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

on February 22, 2011 by Warner Home Video.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

''Due Date'' holds an approval rating of 39% based on 195 reviews and an average rating of 5.20/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Shamelessly derivative and only sporadically funny, ''Due Date'' doesn't live up to the possibilities suggested by its talented director and marvelously mismatched stars." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...

gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...

'' gave the film two and a half stars out of a possible four, noting "The movie probably contains enough laughs to satisfy the weekend audience. Where it falls short is in the characters and relationships." Ebert compared ''Due Date'' to the 1987 film '' Planes, Trains and Automobiles'', but bemoaned that ''Due Date'' could have learned and offered more.

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Due Date 2010 black comedy films 2010 films 2010s buddy comedy-drama films 2010 comedy-drama films 2010s pregnancy films 2010s road comedy-drama films 2010s screwball comedy films 2010s adventure comedy-drama films American adventure comedy-drama films American black comedy films American buddy comedy-drama films American pregnancy films American road comedy-drama films American screwball comedy films 2010s English-language films Films scored by Christophe Beck Films directed by Todd Phillips Films produced by Todd Phillips Films produced by Daniel Goldberg Films set in Alabama Films set in Atlanta Films set in Arizona Films set in California Films set in Georgia (U.S. state) Films set in Los Angeles Films set in Louisiana Films set in Mississippi Films set in New Mexico Films set in Texas Films shot in New Mexico Legendary Pictures films Warner Bros. films 2010s American films Films with screenplays by Adam Sztykiel Films about actors English-language black comedy films English-language adventure comedy-drama films English-language buddy comedy-drama films