Movie Review: Bad Trip
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
In the vein of films like Jackass and Bad Grandpa, the new (ahem) comedy Bad Trip, follows best friends Chris (Eric André) and Bud (Lil Rel Howery) as they travel haplessly from Florida to New York in a misguided quest to reunite Eric with Maria (Michaela Conlin), the supposed love of his life. Along the way, of course, the pair are shoe-horned into one awkward misadventure after another while Bud’s prison-escapee sister (Tiffany Haddish) relentlessly pursues them after she learns they have stolen her prized Pepto Bismol pink car for their odyssey.
There is little more to the plot than this, and the less the better as nothing of any substance is accomplished with what is present anyway. The film is rife with childish and often grotesque humor, such as André being raped at a zoo by a gorilla in front of horrified onlookers, or the pair getting their penises entangled together in a Chinese finger trap and wandering around seeking help from anyone unlucky enough to be within the vicinity. The worst though is that none of these incidents feel even remotely organic, they play strictly as scripted pranks designed to annoy and disgust the public and not entertain the audience in the slightest.
Only Haddish survives relatively unscathed from this hot mess as she relishes the role of pseudo-psychotic sister to her screw-up brother Bud. However, that reprieve only goes so far, as the film never lets up from its onslaught of gags until even Haddish is taken down along with the rest of the film.
In short, there is nothing to recommend here, nor is there anything remotely funny about a frightening majority of Bad Trip. Which, is a shame as it frequently feels as though there might have been a heart-felt tale of lost, then found, love and enduring friendship trapped somewhere within the mishmash of gross-out, juvenile humor that never got to see the light of day.
Mike Tyrkus
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