88% The Trip

All Critics (78) | Top Critics (27) | Fresh (69) | Rotten (9)

Much more than an appetizer, if not quite a main course, it definitely goes down a treat.

Think The Odd Couple with sartorial style and more bickering. Add hints of truisms about middle age, sex, family, mortality and the limits of friendship and The Trip reveals itself to be more than it initially appears.

The joy of this small, unimportant contest is weirdly addictive; you come out of the film as if from a concert, playing the music of false voices in your head.

The film is a wickedly funny joy ride that offers keen, unflatteringly honest insights on fame, midlife crises and the rivalrous nature of male friendship.

It's rife with observations about men of a certain age, actors of a certain career -- and for a bonus, restaurants of a certain moment.

Have you ever been trapped in the back seat of a car while the old married couple up front bickers and banters for hours? It's either sheer torture or, if the couple happens to be Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, wildly entertaining.

So, this is new: a frequently hilarious comedy that is also totally satisfying on an emotional level. A satire of fame that is never mean-spirited, and isn't filled with obnoxious jokes aimed only at insiders.

Fuelled by some inspired and very funny improvisations - their duelling Michael Caine impersonations are a scream - the film gradually settles into a meditation on mid-life malaise.

Rejoice, Coogan and Brydon fans.

The Trip is light and easy to watch. It won't blow you away but you're likely to leave the theatre in a better mood than when you arrived.

...the feature is almost entirely improvised, yet displays some of the sharpest, funniest dialogue in recent memory.

Director Winterbottom has worked with these two before, in the quirky and underappreciated Tristram Shandy for one, and nurtures verisimilitude in the narcissistic and neurotic persona Coogan displayed in that movie and others.

The pinch of pathos in this tart comedy makes the "The Trip" a transportive experience.

Your enjoyment of the film rests entirely on enjoying the company of Coogan and Brydon. I find the duo extremely talented and funny, and many sequences in the film are very, very, funny indeed.

The Trip boasts a pervasively agreeable atmosphere that proves instrumental in compensating for its flaws.

Though the film is genuinely blessed by the inspired improvised banter of its stars, it is the melancholy air of the movie's quieter moments that really get you in.

The Trip is a very funny film about friendship that has a surprisingly touching twist in its tail.

If the narrative is just a touch out of puff by the end, it's worth it for such subtly hilarious scenes along the way. With The Trip it really is the journey that matters, not the destination.

While this offers up the odd laugh, the continual banter grows tedious and wearying, and the whole affair seems pointless.

The Trip works surprisingly well on the big screen as one continuous tale. That's down to its two leading men, who clearly relish sharing screen time with one another.

Starting on Monday, Coogan and Bryden share meals . . . and what passes for conversation. When they're not insufferable, they're boring

If you're up for a chatty riff, this is an entertaining one.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_trip_2011/

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