# Road Trip (2000)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

Oh, to be able to go back to those happy, carefree days of student life, when responsibilities could be easily shrugged off, friends were loyal, dinner consisted of leftover pizza and ramen noodles and studies could be easily brushed aside in favor of attending a beer bash.

What? That wasn't your college experience?

Then you obviously didn't attend the University of Ithaca, the alma mater of the gang in "Road Trip," a relentlessly tacky cruise into the depths of cheap jokes and shock humor. Pasted together from scraps of "There's Something About Mary," "The Sure Thing" and approximately 70 other teen-oriented comedies, the movie is a prime example of what can result from filmmakers pandering to the lowest common denominator. It's also pretty funny in its own right, although few people over the age of 21 are going to be courageous enough to admit they laughed at it.

Leading us on this perversion excursion is Barry (Tom Green), an overripe undergraduate who's currently in his eighth year at Ithaca and who conducts orientation sessions guaranteed to scare the living daylights out of prospective attendees. Pointing out the psychology building, he tells incoming freshmen "each semester, you'll be expected to volunteer for cutting-edge experiments."

Barry also has a story to tell, a real whopper about his buddy Josh (Breckin Meyer), who accidentally videotaped the one night he was unfaithful to Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard), his girlfriend of three years. Since she lives 1800 miles away in Austin, that wouldn't seem to be a major crisis -- except that Josh's roommates accidentally mailed the tape to her, thinking it was something else.

Now Josh, geeky Kyle (DJ Qualls), stoner Rubin (Paulo Costanzo) and the happily amoral E.L. (Seann William Scott, destined to be forever remembered as the "pale ale" guy from "American Pie") -- who theorizes you're not really cheating if you and your true love are in different area codes -- must scurry down to Texas to retrieve the cassette before Tiffany gets ahold of it. Josh insists they must make it there in three days, although given the speed of the U.S. mail these days, you'd think they'd be able to take the scenic route and still make it with plenty of time to spare. Following not so close on their heels is Josh's one-night-stand Beth (Amy Smart), who was misled by Barry into thinking the boys went to Boston instead of Austin and who winds up accidentally causing some major mayhem of her own.

The screenplay by Scot Armstrong and director Todd Phillips keeps beating you over the head with raunchiness until you're left with only two choices: either walk out, or succumb. If you stick around, you'll witness a gross-out farce that should make any cretin chuckle, a veritable barrage of potshots at overweight lovers, blind people, clueless sorority sisters, African-American fraternity brothers, unctuous teaching assistants, snarky motel desk clerks, smarmy restaurant workers, innocent white mice and drug-addled senior citizens. A Best Picture nomination next spring seems somehow unlikely.

And yet "Road Trip" passes the test of a really good comedy: It seems even funnier when you're telling your friends about it days later than it did when you were watching it. Some critics have called this phenomenon "depth-charge humor." If that's the case, then "Road Trip" is a blast. James Sanford

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