Review of The Trip (2011) by Nick O — 18 Mar 2013

Even when the comedy slows or even, dare I say, exhausts, that "The Trip" genuinely works as an actual film...I mean, not that comedies can't be taken seriously as art. At least, that's what Michael Winterbottom does, and I think he can take partial credit for the Shakespeare-caliber performances he gets from inflated versions of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, two inglorious bastards daytripping the English countryside on a restaurant taste test for The Observer magazine. Because beneath the celebrity impressions and riffs of "The Trip" (and Lord, are they abundant) runs a fairly dark current concerning how much professional envy can define personality. Still a bummer that things lead to basically a non-ending, but hey, that's life.

Also, and I know it's been blogged to death, but Coogan and Brydon's Michael Caines. Priceless.