ROAD TRIP R
Starring Tom Green, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart, and D.J. Qualls
Eric says: ****** (6)
Allow me to preface this review by stating that I believe that I'm the only movie-loving 18-24 year old male who hasn't teen American Pie. Not that I wouldn't, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. So Road Trip would be my first official doctrination into the whole young-guy (differentiating it from all of the Farrellys' movies) raunchy buddy movie. Sure, I saw glimpses of Porky's, but I was about 5 at the time, so that doesn't count.
But back to Road Trip. It is about a group of college guys who travel half-way across the country to capture a little home-made "adult video" when it accidentally gets sent to the guy's unsuspecting girlfriend. One friend (Green) chooses to stay behind so that he can give a pet snake its' ritualistic weekly feeding. He also acts as our narrator, recounting the road trip that his buds undertook to reclaim that incriminating tape.
And while we are subjected to gratutious shots of bare-chested women (o, the horror), it still has a good heart, a sweet story to tell. One that says it's ok to drift apart, that you don't have to look like a model to find someone, that if we put our silly pre-concieved notions aside, we really are very similar no matter how different we may look. These are positive and even uplifting themes told within the context of the story so we don't feel like we're being preached to about it.
A harmless blend of jokes without any mean-spiritedness where each character is more than just a stereotype, and the ending makes you feel good, Raod Trip is a nice little movie, though you'd be just fine waiting until it made its way to your local Blockbuster.