Improvisational films are almost always the definition of “uneven.” The high points tend to be gloriously high — they catch lightning in a bottle — and the rest of the movie becomes something you sit through to get to the good stuff.
“The Trip” follows that outline, but it frequently catche
s lightning. Envisioned as a TV vehicle for the British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, and originally broadcast as a six-part series on Brit-TV, “The Trip” has been winnowed down to a compact 107 minutes for a stateside release.
The two men essentially play themselves, but with an exaggerated (I assume) sense of personal and professional rivalry. Coogan has been hired to write a foodie article for a newspaper, and thus will travel around the north of England for a week, visiting a series of renowned restaurants.
Coogan’s having a rocky patch with his girlfriend (Margo Stilley), so she’s not going. At the last minute, he calls up Brydon to see if he’d like to tag along, and the road trip is on.
What follows is a series of scenes with the two comics riffing with each other about any subject that arises. Because both Coogan and Brydon are gifted impressionists, these riffs often take place around, say, Sean Connery or Anthony Hopkins or some other familiar voice.
These are uproarious. Brydon appears to have swallowed Al Pacino whole, the better to regurgitate him at a moment’s notice. And the two men’s dueling Michael Caine imitations have already become the stuff of viral online acclaim.
Director Michael Winterbottom, a prolific and serious-minded filmmaker, is also after something more than comedy (he previously unleashed Coogan and Brydon in “Tristram Shandy”). By tracing Coogan’s career anxieties and Peter Pannish womanizing, he examines the ferocious need of an entertainer to constantly entertain.
After a while, you begin to think there’s something sad about these two grown men who can’t have a conversation without slipping into some celebrity’s persona. Male conversations are often disguised in talk of sports or business or the weather; these guys just take it to an extreme.
“The Trip” finally doesn’t explore this issue so much as it brings it out for amusing consideration. But when Coogan and Brydon are on, it’s very, very amusing.
“The Trip” (3 stars)
British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon hit the road for this lightly fictionalized look at their own showbiz personalities, in an improvisational comedy that hits some hilarious high points. Director Michael Winterbottom also sets an undertone of desperation about why these two men can’t have a conversation with each other without doing their (expert) competing Michael Caine imitations.
Rated: R for language, subject matter.
Showing: Harvard Exit.
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