Eric Andre plays Chris Carey, a schlub with no direction. The only other person in his life is his best friend Bud (Lil Rel Howery), who is more level-headed but under the thumb of his sister Trina (Tiffany Haddish).
When Chris runs into his highschool crush, Maria Li (Michaela Conlin), he becomes obsessed with rebuilding his life around her. Enlisting Bud, Chris goes on a road trip from Florida to New York, where Maria runs an art gallery.
Their big problem is that they have stolen Trina’s car. And Trina just broke out of prison. When she finds out what happened, the best friends are in big trouble.
If they do not destroy each other first...
If Bad Trip was produced as a conventional comedy, it would have been terrible - the characters and plot are cardboard. What makes Bad Trip is how the filmmakers filter this familiar bromance plot through the format of the skits on Eric Andre’s hidden-camera prank show.
Co-written by and starring Eric Andre, with Kitao Sakurai in the director’s chair, Bad Trip is very funny, but ultimately it ends up playing as a showcase for ordinary people’s humanity.
What is striking is the depth of empathy displayed by the civilians roped into Andre’s pranks. No matter how ridiculous the circumstance, there are people there who step forward to help these odd strangers:. Jackie at the diner; the soldier at the recruitment bench; the bystander confronted by Trina; the doorman at Maria’s gallery…
While the set pieces are funny, it is these real-life characters who elevate the scenes and make them unique and unpredictable. The filmmakers also find little grace notes in these people - gestures or actions - to act as punchlines to their scenes. A product of chance and great editing, these small, unintentional beats increase the film’s strange sense of verisimilitude.
Lil Rel Howery is a great foil to Andre, grounding their ridiculous predicament and providing a bridge to the people they run into.
While he is great, the film’s best (fictional) performance belongs to Tiffany Haddish as Trina. The character is a stereotype pushed almost to the point of ridicule, but Haddish’s gonzo performance gives Trina a sense of vulnerability and nuance that provokes some of the funniest interactions in the movie.Haddish commits so completely, never winking at the camera or offering her un-knowing co-stars an out, building a sense of comic tension that culminates in some amazing reactions.
While there is much to enjoy in Bad Trip, I did have one gripe - a lot of the reactions from the normies are cutaways from the action (they are particularly noticeable in the juice store and during the dance number in the food court). It is not a fatal blow, but I felt like a lot of these scenes would be funnier if the people’s reactions were included in the same frame as what they are reacting to.
Bad Trip might be the movie for 2021 - it is all about ordinary people confronted by a unique calamity and showing the best of their natures. It is a message we can take something from.
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