Due Date & Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Due Date and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are two on-road-comedies about two different sets of men who are strangers traveling across country together in order to get to different places. They follow the two sets of men over several days while they find their way to where they’re going, with lots of mishaps along the way. Both Ethan Tremblay and Del Griffith are the wild, joyful counter-parts to the main straight-men they are traveling with. Both of them are also the instigators in their long cross-country trips with strangers. They are also the reasons, in large part, that Peter Highman and Neal Page are forced to end up traveling with them. Due Date and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are two very similar cross-country trip comedies with a funny man and a straight man that fit the times in which they were made.

The first similarities you’ll notice when comparing the two films are the settings. Del and Ethan both accidently help screw up their future traveling partners’ day outside an airport. Hilarity then ensues on the actual plane with the unlikely pairs being seated together. Both sets of guys also end up off the flight before reaching their destinations. Peter and Ethan get kicked off their flight, but Neal and Del’s plane is forced to land early. The cities that these scenes happen in are different too, but you wouldn’t exactly know it if you didn’t pay close attention. They end up sharing a motel room, which doesn’t go as planned of course. There are also many similar diners that the characters stop to eat at along their treks.

Situations is something I addressed a little bit in the previous paragraph, but not every in-depth. Peter and Neal both get robbed of their money, however in PTaA, Del gets robbed too and in Due Date, Ethan is the one that actually robs Peter. The characters also end up relating in very different ways. The characters relate at times in obvious, sentimental ways in Due Date and it is more subtle in Planes & Trains. Neal takes longer to warm up to Del also, even though he is less hard-edged than Peter from Due Date. One other difference in the situations of the films is that in Due Date, the men intentionally stay together after they begin traveling together while in Planes & Trains, the men keep running into one another. The protagonists in the films have car trouble caused the buffoonery of their films’ wild men as well.

Due Date and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are amazingly similar comedies from different decades. Because Due Date was made so long after PTaA, some might consider it a rip-off. However there is enough different for it to be considered a good travel comedy in its own right. Both films have a strong layer of depth under their comedy exteriors, making them fun and relatable at the same time.