Road Trip

Success of American Pie led many in Hollywood to believe that the next big trend will be renaissance of raunchy teen sex comedies like those that had been all the rage in 1980s. One of the attempts to test that trends was Road Trip, 2000 comedy directed by Todd Phillips.

Plot revolves around Josh Parker (played by Breckin Meyer) and Tiffany Henderson (played by Rachel Blanchard), couple that used to be together since childhood. Recently they were set apart by Josh studying at University of Ithaca in New York, while Tiffany studying at University of Austin in Texas. Despite long term physical separation they try to keep their relationship alive by exchanging letters, phone calls, E-mails and videotapes every day. One day, however, Josh succumbs to the temptation in the form of beautiful classmate Beth Wagner (played by Amy Smart) and not only has sex with her but had it recorded on tape. At first he doesn’t think of it more than careless indiscretion. Everything changes when he realises that he had accidentally sent the sex tape to Tiffany. The only glimmer of hope for Josh is that Tiffany is away for the weekend, so he decides to travel to Texas in order to try intercepting shipment. He asks his friend Kyle (played by D. J. Smalls) to drive him in his car and two other friends – E. L. Faldt (played by Seann William Scott) and Rubin Carver (played by Paul Costanzo) – join him on the trip where they will experience all kinds of bizarre adventures.

Todd Phillips, director who later become famous for his work on Hangover series, wasn’t a bad choice for this project. Two years earlier Frat House, his documentary dedicated to wild lifestyles at US college fraternities, won Grand Jury prize at Sundance Film Festival. Road Trip is set in the same milieu, but in terms of style it is more in line with standards of Hollywood gross out comedy of late 1990s and early 2000s. There is a lot of toilet humour and even more nudity compared with American Pie, while some jokes openly challenges newly established dogmas of “political correctness”. On the other hand, script co-written by Phillips and Scott Armstrong, generally takes very humane approach to the characters, with almost each of them portrayed in sympathetic light, and that involves even women that were in 1980s teen sex comedies treated as pieces of meat. Road Trip for the most part looks a like coherent whole with plot which is quite strong despite being composed in vignettes characteristic for road films.

Road Trip is good film or, to be precise, it could have been a good film if not for one detail. It is the casting of Tom Green, comedian who had made his fame as MTV anchor. Green in the film plays Barry Manilow, friend who was left behind and who narrates his film. To say that Green is obnoxious would be an understament. His jokes are awfully unfunny, and Green has nasty habit of repeating them at each occasion, especially when jokes involves various house pets. While Green doesn’t make Road Trip completely unwatchable, he is main reason why Phillips’ film didn’t live to its potential and why it could be recommended only to viewers that don’t have hour and half of their lives to spend on something better. In 2009 a direct-to-video sequel under title Road Trip: Beer Pong was released.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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