Road Trip is a 2000 American road-comedy film written by Todd Phillips andScot Armstrong and directed by Phillips. The film, featuring an ensemble castincluding Breckin Meyer, Seann William Scott, Amy Smart, Paulo Costanzo,DJ Qualls, Rachel Blanchard, Anthony Rapp, Andy Dick, and Tom Green, follows four college friends as they embark on an 1800-mile road trip to retrieve an illicit tape mistakenly mailed to a girlfriend.
Josh Parker and Tiffany Henderson are childhood friends who became high school sweethearts, but had to face a long-distance relationship when Josh enrolls at the (fictional) University of Ithaca and Tiffany enrolls at theUniversity of Texas at Austin, promising continued fidelity to one another. Eventually, when Josh loses touch with Tiffany, Josh believes Tiffany might be seeing other people. Nonetheless, he makes a daily recorded video blog to her. Josh asks Rubin to mail his blog tape to Tiffany before leaving for class.
In class, Josh is failing Ancient Philosophy and the professor informs him he needs a B+ on his mid-term to pass the semester, and furthermore, to re-enroll. Still worrying about Tiffany, Josh's friend E.L. Faldt convinces him to embrace his friend Beth Wagner, who has a great attraction for Josh. Jacob, the T.A. of Philosophy, has a huge crush on Beth and is jealous of Josh, aware of Beth's feelings for him. During E.L.'s party, Josh attends and E.L. holds an auction of several women, including Beth. Jacob also attends the party, and Beth, afraid of Jacob, convinces Josh to outbid Jacob. They promptly retire to Josh's room, and videotape their relations with Josh's blog recorder.
The next morning, Josh arrives in the room in a very jolly mood, confessing that he slept with Beth. His friends play his tape but Josh discovers that Rubin accidentally mailed the sex tape to Tiffany, having confused it with Josh's blog tape for Tiffany. Josh then receives a voicemail from Tiffany saying that she didn't call him because her grandfather had died and she will be away from school until Monday. Accompanied by E.L. and Rubin, Josh asks Kyle to tag along, mainly because he needs Kyle's car. Kyle is a compulsive worrier who lives in constant fear of his overly strict father, Earl Edwards, the rightful owner of their car. The group heads out to drive the nearly 3,400 miles (5,500 km) to Austin and back in three days and leave Barry to take care of Mitch, their pet snake.
Taking a supposed 'short-cut', they come upon a small collapsed bridge and are frustrated that they will waste 5 hours back tracking. E.L. and Rubin convince the other two that they could jump the gap, a la Evel Knievel. Kyle objects but they proceed. They make it across, but the car is effectively destroyed upon landing when the wheels fall off. They get out and discuss what to do next, and the car explodes. So, they continue on foot and stop at a motel. Rubin tries to score marijuana off the whacky, acerbic motel clerk and is informed that Kyle's credit card is maxed out. E.L. looks for transportation, and talks an otherwise rather savvy blind woman, Brenda, who works for a local school for the blind, into letting him take a bus away to be repaired. The guys hit the road again.
Meanwhile, Kyle's father, Earl, tries to pay for a meal with the maxed out card, but is denied service. He then begins an all-out search for Kyle when he is informed by the police that Kyle's car was found blown up and Kyle is missing. On their way to Austin, the group goes through a series of misadventures, such as two of them making deposits at a sperm bank to raise needed funds, Rubin successfully bluffing his way into letting the group stay overnight at an all-Black fraternity house at theUniversity of Tennessee, and a riotous visit with Barry's grandparents. Since Josh's books were destroyed in the exploded car, he calls his professor to ask for an extension on his midterm exam. Jacob answers the phone, pretends to be the professor, and grants a worthless extension.
While Barry is trying to feed Mitch, Beth comes back to the room inquiring of Josh's whereabouts; Barry informs her that Josh has feelings for her. Jacob walks in and informs Beth that he tricked Josh about the mid-term extension, and that he is about to flunk Philosophy. Mitch bites Barry in the hand, causing a violent struggle which ends with Mitch landing on Jake, biting his neck, and making him pass out.
The group finally gets to Austin and, once they get to Tiffany's dorm, Josh eventually intercepts the tape he sent to Tiffany, who has just arrived back at school. But Earl shows up, enraged over what happened with the car and the credit card and threatens to drag Kyle back home with him. Kyle finally summons the courage to stand up to him and states that he is going back to school with his friends. Earl attacks him and confusion reigns in an all-out mini-riot in the dorm's lobby. Josh and Tiffany retreat and discuss their relationship, but Beth calls to warn Josh that he has been duped by Jacob, and while Josh talks to her, Tiffany starts to watch the tape, which turns out to be nothing but Barry mooning for the camera. Josh now has 48 hours to get back to school or else he will fail his midterm and the course, and, possibly, be kicked out of college. After they talk, Josh and Tiffany agree to break up and remain friends. Josh and his buddies head back to school and Josh arrives just in time to take his midterm – with a little, albeit illegal, help from Beth.
Barry closes the film, ending the visitors' tour by confirming to them that Josh passed the course, that Josh and Beth are still together, a happy couple still making videos, that Jacob eventually became a leader of a cult and committed suicide, that Rubin became a fantastic marijuana cultivator, and lastly relates humorous facts about E.L.'s and Kyle's situations.
CastBreckin Meyer as Josh Parker
Seann William Scott as E.L. Faldt
Paulo Costanzo as Rubin Carver
DJ Qualls as Kyle Edwards
Amy Smart as Beth Wagner
Tom Green as Barry Manilow, the college tour guide and narrator of the film
Rachel Blanchard as Tiffany Henderson, Josh's long distance girlfriend
Anthony Rapp as Jacob Schultz
Fred Ward as Earl Edwards
Andy Dick as Motel Clerk
Ethan Suplee as Ed Bradford
Jaclyn DeSantis as Heather
Horatio Sanz as French Toast Guy
Rhoda Griffis as Tour Group Mom
Edmund Lyndeck as Jack Manilow, Barry's grandfather
Ellen Albertini Dow as Mrs. Manilow, Barry's grandmother
Jessica Cauffiel as Wrong Tiffany
Mia Amber Davis as Rhonda
Mary Lynn Rajskub as Blind Brenda
Tim Ware as Officer Bortz
Todd Phillips as Beth's feet admirer
Jimmy Kimmel as Corky's voice
Marla Sucharetza as the sperm bank nurse
Todd Barry as Campus Security Guard
ProductionThe fictional University of Ithaca is based on both Ithaca College and Cornell University both located in Ithaca, New York. Filming took place on the campuses of Woodward Academy, Georgia Tech, Emory University, and the University of Georgia. The university seen in a flyover in the opening scene is actually Harvard University, the same footage was later used in the film Old School in 2003. The diner scene was shot in Lawrenceville, Georgia at the Gwinnett Diner, as it says on the coffee mugs. One of the final scenes of the tour was filmed at Founders Park at the University of Southern California.
Release
Critical reception
Road Trip received mixed to positive reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 57% based on 91 reviews. The consensus was "Some humor is hit or miss, depending on the audience tastes, but the movie is funny overall. Mixed reviews for the cast, especially for MTV's Tom Green."
Box officeThe film opened at #3 at the North American box office making US$15,484,004 in its opening weekend, behind Gladiatorand Dinosaur.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment