Directed by Michael Winterbottom
Starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon
Running time: 1 hour and 43 minutes

by Ian Hrabe

Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip series occupies a weird space in the film continuum. Each feature is essentially a condensed version of its accompanying six-part BBC miniseries, and yet each film feels like an episode in a decade long TV series about two buddies gallivanting about the great cities bickering, cracking jokes and doing impressions. The films and TV series are effectively a riff on food and travel television, and just like that programming (with the exception of the edgier episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s shows), they are as undemanding as it gets. The Trip movies are peak non-essential cinema, but even so they always provide a cozy distraction from the real world.