When this movie started, I thought “There must be some kind of mistake.” I thought I had somehow walked into the wrong theater. I came in to see Get Him to the Greek, a comedy starring Russell Brand and Jonah Hill, yet I was seeing images of a war-torn and poverty-stricken Africa. I was understandably confused. But then Brand showed up as rock star Aldous Snow, in the middle of shooting a music video for his new single, “African Child.” The celebrity-worshipping news-lite programs are on hand to discuss the song and its video, showing that Aldous is doing this for charitable purposes that he’s not entirely clear on.

I was hooked.

This is the first step the movie takes in showing us the absurdities of the music industry, celebrity culture and the paparazzi surrounding them. As the movie progresses, it paints a world without reason, responsibility, restraint or sincerity, in which everybody is high and set on kissing the ass of the most important person in the room. Also, hit music is totally awful and overtly based on the “sex sells” theory, though everyone loves it all the same (or pretends to love it).

Greek is also very unique in how it deals with drugs. Yes, the film does deal quite extensively with the negative effects of drugs and alcohol abuse, but frequently for humor without being tasteless and never in a way that seems preachy. What’s more, the film subtly reminds us that hundreds of our most legendary performers (The Beatles, The Who, Black Sabbath, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, etc.) could never have given us their most famous and culturally important works if they didn’t get astronomically high. Was the drug abuse worth it? I’d say that the film leans toward the negative, but doesn’t give a definitive answer. It never addresses drugs as good or bad things within the music industry, simply that they are a permanent fixture there. It’s something that must be addressed in any analysis of rock music and I appreciate how it’s handled here.

The parody and satire here is on par with that of Tropic Thunder, and Sean “Diddy” Combs gets to play this movie’s Les Grossman. Diddy steals the show, playing a potty-mouthed exec with questionable sanity, yet completely aware that he’s large and in charge. It helps that like Grossman, Diddy’s Sergio is made the center of every scene he’s in. To give an example, there’s a scene early on in which Sergio is holding a conference amongst a dozen lesser execs. They’re all reluctant to give any ideas, even before Sergio chews a couple of them out. Then Aaron Green — Jonah Hill’s character — suggests booking Aldous for a performance at the Greek Theater in LA for the 10-year anniversary of his landmark performance in that same theater. Sergio responds with a shrug before showing off his idea for a game-changer: A godawful rap song consisting of two obscenities repeated over and over. Everyone is dancing to it, either because they genuinely like it or because they’re being sheep for their boss. I’m not sure which reason it is, but it’s brilliant and funny either way.

Flash forward to a few scenes later, when Sergio — with no provocation — says that Aldous’s performance at the Greek is on. It’s seriously like he supported Aaron’s idea when it was first proposed. This is where the film started to lose me.

There is precious little consistency or logic in how the characters in this movie act. For another example, take Aldous: The guy is trying to sober up and failing miserably, so of course he’s going to be batshit crazy. Unfortunately, because the movie is about getting Aldous from London to LA, the film goes where he goes. When Aldous wants to take a detour, the film takes a detour. When he wants to skip a flight, the film stays where it is. The plot only goes where Aldous wants it to, which makes his capricious nature a big fucking problem.

There are also quite a few times when he leads the plot into a dead end. I’ll show you what I mean: At one point, Aldous is set to play “African Child” for the Today Show, only to tell Aaron at the last minute that he’s forgotten the lyrics. So Aaron has to run through the NBC studio and its audience, trying to find someone who knows the lyrics. Showtime comes and Aldous still doesn’t know the lyrics. Five seconds later, he decides to play a different song. Thus, the entire story thread was made entirely pointless. This happens two or three times in the movie.

But at least Brand still manages to find the heart of his character and make Aldous interesting. The same cannot be said for Hill, who plays perhaps the worst straight man in recent memory. See, the entire point of a straight man is to act as a sounding board for the insanity surrounding him. This is not effective when the sounding board is made of tissue paper. Aaron has a thin dowel rod where his backbone ought to be and his level of intelligence is far below what’s necessary to effectively comment on what’s happening around him.

Aaron also has more than his fair share of actions that are either inconsistent or just plain stupid. For example, there’s the entire love subplot between him and Daphne, a girl whose ambitions, interests and sleep schedule are totally incompatible with his. It’s therefore inevitable that they should have an argument louder and angrier than is warranted by the subject. But even when Daphne makes the reasonable suggestion of shelving the argument until after the Greek gig, Aaron continues the argument for no reason. And this happens in the movie not once, but TWICE. There’s also a scene late in the movie in which Aaron makes that final push to convince Aldous into playing at the Greek. Not five minutes later, he’s telling Aldous that he doesn’t have to play. WHAT THE HELL?!

Don’t get me wrong: I laughed at this movie and I laughed hard. Unfortunately, the spot-on satire, the hilarious jokes and the often unique visuals are all wrapped around a narrative that’s only held together by chewed-up gum, safety pins and inconsistencies in characterization. To that end, I have a very difficult time giving this a recommendation. If you’re looking for a comedy and/or a few hilarious jabs at the state of music today, you could certainly do far worse, but it’s still not worth paying full price for.