ROAD TRIP (2000) / **
Directed by Todd Phillips. Screenplay by Phillips and Scot Armstrong. Starring Breckin Meyer, Seann William Scott, DJ Qualls. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated AA for mature subject matter, coarse language and nude scenes by the MFCB. Reviewed on June 9th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
"American Pie" was one of 1999's funniest films. Although it was most notorious for the way it pushed the envelope in terms its gross and outrageous content, it was also a very genuine and very funny movie, and this set it above other comedies of its ilk. Of course, any successful film is bound to spawn imitators, and "Road Trip" is, I'm sure, only the first of many. But "Road Trip" is basically just "American Pie" writ small. Although it tries -- and sometimes succeeds -- for the most part it's not as gross, as outrageous, or as funny as its predecessor, and most importantly it's lacking the heart which made "American Pie" such a success.
This is most immediately obvious in the movie's premise. Whereas "American Pie" told a very believable, unassuming story -- four teenagers' attempts to lose their virginity before the senior prom -- "Road Trip" is much more contrived. Josh (Breckin Meyer) and Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard) have been friends since kindergarten and a couple since their early teens. But graduation has meant separation, with Josh attending Ithaca University and Tiffany going to the University of Austin. Now the two are forced to communicate mostly by phone and videotape.
But Josh is also the object of desire of fellow Ithaca student Beth (Amy Smart). When several days pass without Josh hearing from Tiffany, he assumes the worst -- that Tiffany has abandoned him for another guy. Giving in to his lust, he brings Beth back to his dorm room after a party. Beth suggests they videotape their romantic encounter, and the drunken Josh agrees. The next morning, he discovers his pal Rubin (Paulo Costanzo) has accidentally mailed the sex tape to Tiffany in place of his regular video-gram. To make matters worse, he then finds out that the reason Tiffany has been out of touch is because her grandfather died suddenly. Josh decides he must go to Austin and retrieve the tape before Tiffany returns to school in three days. He, Rubin, and their friend E.L. (Seann William Scott, who was Stifler in "American Pie") convince wormy but vehicularly-enabled Kyle (DJ Qualls) to join them in a wild and wacky road trip south.
In the wake of increasingly ribald comedies like "American Pie" and "There's Something About Mary", I expected "Road Trip" would go even further in the gross-out department -- especially given the inclusion in the cast of Comedy Central grossmeister Tom Green. Surprisingly, though, it's really pretty tame; only a scene at a diner is notably crude. Other moments try to be disgusting, but ultimately the cringe factor is unexpectedly low. Or maybe I'm just becoming desensitized to that kind of thing. Even the nudity -- which is about the only category in which "Road Trip" outpaces "American Pie" -- is generally inoffensive, although that may be as much to prevent the film being prohibitively rated as for any aesthetic reasons.
To be fair, "Road Trip" is pretty funny, but it never manages to sustain its momentum. Many scenes work, but more than a few misfire, or aren't exploited to their full comic potential. For example, at one point the lads pretend to be members of a fraternity in order to get a place to crash for the night, only to discover its members are all black. The sequence starts off well, but the tension is defused surprisingly quickly, and the whole thing feels abbreviated. Part of the technique used by "American Pie" and "Mary" was to take a funny situation, and then push it farther than anyone could have anticipated (the infamous "franks and beans" scene in the latter, for example). "Road Trip" seems unwilling to be quite so adventurous, and is really a conventional film making a pretense of being controversial.
Much of the disparity between "Road Trip" and "American Pie" stems from the lack of characterisation in the new release. Whereas most of the denizens of "American Pie" were well-crafted and convincing, the population of "Road Trip" is mostly forgettable. Only Kyle really works: Qualls somehow manages to carry himself with a quiet dignity, rather than just playing the stereotypical college nerd. Although he's still an exaggeration, no character is easier to relate to than Kyle, and his transformation over the course of the film is by far its most interesting element.
Also very good are two supporting players who enjoy subplots of their own away from the main "road trip" storyline. Green, as eternal Ithaca student Barry, handles his material well and looks like he could easily carry a leading role in the future. Indeed, although I find the quality of Green's television programme highly variable, he's consistently enjoyable here. Smart, from TV's "Felicity", is somewhat wooden when interacting with the other leads. But once her character is misdirected by Barry to Boston (instead of Austin) in pursuit of Josh, she becomes more comfortable with the role, and the scenario plays out amusingly.
The rest of the cast doesn't do quite so well. Meyer is amiable but two-dimensional as Josh; this is unfortunate because a strong center could have really helped pull "Road Trip" together. Scott seems to be replicating his "American Pie" character, but his material here is not nearly as strong. And Costanzo wanders through the movie in a state of perpetual listlessness, a condition which can only partly be justified by Rubin's drug habit. The meagre attempt toward the end of the film to give the character a bit of substance seems tacked on and is a poor fit with the film's overall mood.
It would be unfair to say that "Road Trip" is a step back for the teen comedy genre, but it's certainly a movie that is satisfied to hold the course rather than forging into new territory. And given that what's made the genre successful in recent years has been a fervent drive to push ever farther, that's tantamount to failure in of itself. "Road Trip" is good for a few laughs, but it's no "American Pie".
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/RoadTrip.html
_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | shannon@mun.ca | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |
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