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So as you know, I stopped writing lengthy reviews on this site this year, keeping the blog as more of a film diary of sorts.  Lo and behold,...

Monday, October 17, 2011

Movie Review - The Trip

The Trip (2011)
Starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Innately British in its humour, The Trip is a 110-minute film edited from a six-episode BBC television series about two real-life celebrities who travel across the English countryside on a tour of restaurants.  Steve Coogan (most well-known in the States for Tropic Thunder) and Rob Brydon (whose role as "First Villager" in A Knight's Tale may be his only claim to fame here, but who is [from what I can tell] a popular comedian in Britain) play fictional versions of themselves as they trek across their native land eating great food, talking about life, and doing impressions of everyone from Anthony Hopkins to Michael Caine and Robert DeNiro to Woody Allen (along with a few British folks with whom I am not familiar).

If I were British, I could see myself loving this film.  Seeing as how I'm not, things just didn't quite work for this reviewer.  Don't get me wrong, during the first thirty minutes, I found myself cracking up at several of the impressions this duo presented.  However, as the film moves on, it wears out its welcome.  Coogan and Brydon are both quite fine, but this is one of those movies where nothing happens and you either buy into that nothingness and enjoy it or you grow tired of it -- I fell into the latter category finding the whole thing tedious and rambling.  Despite their best efforts at crafting an interesting friendship onscreen and an attempt at going super-serious and "artsy" at the film's conclusion, the two stars' rambling had me wishing the film had a better editor to whittle down the tv series a whole lot more.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:24 PM, October 17, 2011

    Rob Brydon. Uncle Bryn on Gavin and Stacey.

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  2. Jeff10:36 PM, October 17, 2011

    ...has no clue what Gavin and Stacey is...if you are the "Anonymous" that I think you are, I feel like you mentioned to this movie to me in passing at some point which is why I checked it out.

    I actually liked Rob Brydon quite a bit despite my not liking the movie.

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  3. Anonymous10:26 PM, October 18, 2011

    I liked it - and think I did mention it to you - although I could have done without the Steve Coogan/girlfriend sidestory. I think I would have liked it more if (1) I knew of those few British folk I wasn't familiar with and (2) if I just saw the series instead.

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  4. Jeff11:42 PM, October 18, 2011

    I'm not going to watch the series now, but I do feel like for some reason I would have enjoyed this more if I watched it in 30 minute snippets rather than as one full movie. Spacing out the imitations over the span of a week may have made them seem fresh coming back to it after seven days.

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