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chapter11 [ 7.5 ]
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Yep -- this is a competent, barely-there film that just serves as a series of setpieces upon which to string a series of comic monologues, but for what it is, it's awfully entertaining. It meanders, yes, but not in the sense of some of the more indulgent soliloquing indulged in by, say, Kevin Smith, or Quentin Tarantino; here, we get comic madness, as Steve Coogan and sidekick Rob Brydon wax intellectually about Abba songs, or try on duelling Michael Caine impressions. It's to the credit of its two stars (and pretty much just them) that "The Trip" never gets old, or feels overlong, but you do have to be in a certain kind of mood to enjoy it. Just be aware that you're pretty much just in store for a whole bunch of talking -- often severely funny talking, yes, but talking all the same -- and you should be just fine.
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DokBrowne [ 7.5 ]
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Works if you're familiar with the actors at least a little, and preferably if you've already enjoyed them elsewhere.
Coogan is playing the same petty, arrogant SOB as always; this marks yet another barely-satirical-because-it-seems-mostly-true treatise on the career of Steve Coogan by Steve Coogan himself, this time with an inevitable foregrounding of the melancholic loneliness at the heart of this comic persona that I'm not sure we're supposed to take 100% seriously, but nevertheless has a sobering effect every time it rolls around in the film (which is divided into 2 sections: long, comic riffing sessions of their daytime journeys, then a "that night" denouement usually showing the two separated, with Coogan facing an emptiness in his soul in an empty hotel room, and Brydon warmly chatting with his wife over the phone, all set to poignant piano tinklings). It's an interesting film experience, probably inadvertently (or unfairly) since it's really just a bunch of TV episodes strung together, but if you ignore that fact and take this in the film mindset, it's a unique invention, these surrealistically endless and painstakingly nuanced improv battles between 2 clashing personalities punctuated by bittersweet fade outs. The dry wackiness can be long in the tooth if you're not wholly in the mood for such voluminous bullshitting, but it's easy to admire their commitment, wit, and especially their addictive celebrity impersonations.
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jeff_v [ 7.5 ]
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A couple of scenes made me laugh as hard as any this year, and situating this peek into the lives of two men on different rungs of the fame ladder in the context of a food tour of northern England was inspired.
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| Weighted Rating | : 7.3 |
| No. Ratings | : 4 | |
| No. Reviews | : 3 | |
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