Road Trip is a 2000 comedy film written by Todd Phillips and Scott Armstrong and directed by Phillips. It is about the story of Josh (Breckin Meyer) who accidentally sends a video of him and his love interest (Amy Smart) to his childhood sweetheart Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard) and has to try to get the video back before Tiffany returns to school and before his final exam in philosophy. So he and his friends go on a road trip in order to do so.
Cast
Plot
The film begins at the fictional University of Ithaca (based on Ithaca College) with Barry (Tom Green) giving a tour around the campus to a crowd of uninterested individuals.
Eventually, after one of the tour members questions whether anything interesting happens at the university, Barry begins his story. He tells them of his friend, Josh Parker (Breckin Meyer), a university student who had been continuously faithful to his long-distance love Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard), who was studying at the fictional University of Austin (based on the University of Texas at Austin) which happened to be eighteen hundred miles away.
Setup
The story fades into a nightmare Josh is having about Tiffany cheating on him with a fellow student. Right after Tiffany and her new boyfriend begin kissing, Josh wakes up abruptly and calls Tiffany, leaving a message for her and then filming a videotaped message to her. While filming this, Josh's friends Rubin (Paulo Costanzo) and Barry enter and we learn Rubin has a pet snake named Mitch, which can only be fed once a week - a process which fascinates Barry. At this point, Josh realizes he is late for class and, rushing out, he asks Rubin to mail the videotape to Tiffany.
While running to class, Josh runs into Beth, a student who has a crush on him. After this, Beth is accosted by Jacob, a philosophy teaching assistant who has an unhealthy obsession with Beth. During a philosophy lecture, an upcoming test is announced, which promises to be extremely difficult.
After class, Jacob confronts Josh for "hitting" on Beth when the professor (Wendell B. Harris Jr.), informs Josh that he needs a B+ to pass the course. After this, Josh meets up with his friend, E.L. (Seann William Scott), who encourages him to cheat, at which point Josh reveals the possibility of losing his financial aid and being forced to leave college. E.L. encourages Josh to ignore the test, hook up with Beth that night, and enjoy his last week of college for that year. Josh argues that he does not want to cheat on Tiffany with Beth. An attempt by Josh to call Tiffany reveals that she has not been staying at her dorm, creating more concern in Josh's mind.
E.L. throws a party that night, at which he has planned to auction off dates with various girls. Meanwhile, Barry is elsewhere, convincing two girls to experiment sexually with each other and him. Before her auction comes up, Beth asks Josh to outbid Jacob, who is also at the party. Josh wins the auction when E.L. ignores Jacob's bids, and brings Beth back to his room. Beth learns about Tiffany, but Josh tells her they have broken up. Beth quickly begins to seduce Josh, and then sees Josh's video camera, beginning to "interview" him about what he looks for in a girl. As the interview progresses, Beth begins stripping and kissing Josh. It is implied the next morning that the two had sex, which ended up being captured on Beth's video. When his friends find out that the previous night's events were videotaped, Josh is forced to show the video to them, but the greeting to Tiffany shows instead - revealing that it was the sex tape with Beth that got sent to Tiffany. Josh then finds out that the reason Tiffany wasn't answering his calls was because her grandfather died.
The Trip
Josh decides to travel to Austin to get the videotape before Tiffany returns home from her grandfather's funeral in three days. E.L. says he will accompany Josh on the trip and the two go in search of Kyle, a nerd who lives in Josh's dorm. After finding him, they pressure him into letting them borrow his car (a 1989 Ford Taurus). He is initially reluctant to let them do so, but Josh eventually convinces Kyle by inviting him along on the trip. Rubin also plans to come on the trip, but Barry decides to stay in Ithaca, having never in his life left the town. Rubin charges Barry with feeding his snake Mitch while he is gone.
During the first portion of the trip, E.L. tries to get Josh to describe the sex tape and the two discuss why Josh feels so guilty about having sex with Beth. They get into a lengthy discussion with Rubin about what constitutes cheating until Kyle jumps in with a random comment about lewd activity with one's dog involving peanut butter, to which Rubin, Josh and E.L. all react with disgust. Meanwhile, Beth goes to look for Josh in his room after he leaves, to find only Barry is there. After being asked where Josh went, Barry tells her he went to "Austin, Massachusetts." Beth corrects him and is left believing Josh went to Boston.
The movie then cuts to a scene with Beth talking with an unnamed topless girl in a locker room. The two discuss how Josh lied to her about his relationship with Tiffany. In the middle of the scene, the movie cuts back to the tour group, still at the stadium. One of the girls on the tour objects to this part of the story, at which point Barry quickly begins describing more nude girls in the locker room, much to the pleasure of the males in the tour group. The scene cuts back to the locker room, which is now indeed packed with nude girls, while a fully-clothed Beth discusses males' obsession with sex. In the 'uncut' DVD version of the movie during this conversation the camera slowly zooms in to the topless girls breasts in a humorous reference to their conversation. At the end of the conversation, one of the girls encourages Beth to find Tiffany and reveal that Josh cheated.
The movie cuts back to the four traveling students as they shop for supplies at Target. E.L. browbeats Kyle to let them use his credit card, which Kyle says his father gave him for "emergencies only". The four eventually come to what they believe is a shortcut that will save them five hours. However, they end up encountering a washed out bridge. Rubin persuades E.L. to jump the bridge in Kyle's car but Kyle disagrees. They make it across, but the car's wheels collapse, and the air bag explodes into E.L.'s face. They exit the car and Kyle says his father will kill him when he finds the car is totaled, as the four are walking. Josh says he doesn't have time to walk but Rubin tells him not to worry that it's only the wheels. Right at that moment, the car explodes, and the four turn around and look at it.
Without a car, Josh, E.L., Rubin and Kyle check into a motel for the night. The next morning Rubin goes into the hotel office, where he asks the clerk (Andy Dick) if he can purchase any marijuana. The clerk gives him a strange answer, then tells him Kyle's credit card is "maxed out". The scene switches to Kyle's parents finding out about the card the next morning. After a brief scene in which E.L. and Rubin discuss their financial problem and lack of a vehicle, the movie rejoins Kyle's parents with a police officer, who informs them that Kyle's car has been found in Bedford, Pennsylvania and that Kyle is missing from school.
E.L. goes to a school for the blind and tricks the blind office clerk (Mary Lynn Rajskub) to give him the keys to one of the school's buses. Meanwhile, Kyle, Rubin and Josh are eating breakfast at a diner. After Kyle complains that the waiter (Horatio Sanz) has messed up his order, the waiter defiles Kyle's food and redelivers it to him, who heartily eats it. At this point, E.L. arrives with the stolen bus and the trip continues through another travel montage. At one point Kyle asks E.L. if they can stop. E.L. jokingly denies the request, and then tells Kyle he needs to be more assertive and stand up for himself more. Kyle reveals his father's strictness has played a key role in the way he acts.
Eventually, Josh calls Professor Anderson's office. Jacob, the teaching assistant, answers the phone and, upon learning it is Josh, pretends to be the professor. Mimicking his deep voice, Jacob pretends to grant Josh an extension on his midterm, with no intention of informing anyone. Back at the collapsed bridge, a group of police officers are investigating the scene of the car explosion with Kyle's parents.
Beth, meanwhile, arrives in Boston and tracks down who she believes is Tiffany. Beth then confesses she had sex with "Tiffany's" boyfriend, to which "Tiffany" responds by vandalizing her boyfriend's car and hitting him with a baseball bat. Embarrassed, Beth takes the bus home. As she sleeps barefoot, the man in the seat in back of her (played by director Todd Phillips) sucks her toes and then asks her if she would like a foot massage. Beth rejects his advances, making a scene.
The travelers arrive in Tennessee on Saturday night and find a fraternity house. Rubin says he knows the fraternity's handshake and uses this to persuade the brothers to let them in, saying they are from the Ithaca chapter. However, the fraternity is made up entirely of African-American members; since the four guests are all white, they are painfully out of place and obviously not members of the fraternity as they had claimed.
After playing a practical joke on the four by claiming to have found a Ku Klux Klan hood in Kyle's bag, the brothers welcome the guests into the fraternity's party. During the party, Kyle gets drunk, and a heavy set African-American girl named Rhonda (Mia Amber Davis) takes a liking to him. The two then proceed to talk, where Kyle reveals he is a virgin. Rhonda takes him to a bedroom and the two have sex. The next morning, Josh, E.L. and Rubin cannot figure out Kyle's strange mood. E.L. questions him when they are back on the bus and Kyle pulls out a pair of unusually large cheetah-print underwear and reveals what happened the previous night.
Still low on cash, the boys visit a sperm bank in an attempt to make some money. With Rubin having smoked marijuana and Kyle having had sex (which he proudly proclaims for all present to hear), only Josh and E.L. remain eligible and proceed to the donation rooms. Josh quickly enters his room, while E.L. flirts with the nurse and tries to persuade her to help him with a sexual favor. However, the nurse simply "milks his prostate", to which E.L. reacts very loudly. The film jumps back to Barry's tour group as a mother makes a quick comment about the procedure, and afterwards cuts to Barry still in the room with the snake, which still has not eaten after a whole day. Barry places the mouse in his own mouth just as Beth walks in, questioning why he sent her to Boston. Then Jacob, who was following Beth, enters and tells her about how he lied to Josh about the exam extension. Suddenly, appearing to be finally hungry at the time, the snake bites the mouse, Barry's hand and all, who, in an effort to get the snake off him, throws it across the room, where it wraps itself around Jacob.
Barry reveals he had arranged for Josh, E.L., Rubin and Kyle to spend the night at his grandparents' house (Ellen Albertini Dow and Edmund Lyndeck). Walking up to the house, the four learn Barry's last name is "Manilow," meaning his name is "Barry Manilow," identical to that of the singer. Rubin takes a liking to Barry's grandfather who asks for some marijuana when Rubin is out on the porch at night smoking some- the grandfather ends up hallucinating that the dog is talking to him, (the voice of Jimmy Kimmel). Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Kyle's father questions the clerk, while Kyle's mother sees the boys made two calls to Austin and assumes they went there.
Texas
The boys arrive at the University of Austin on Monday morning and head to Tiffany's dorm, where they ask a student at the mailroom desk for her mail. He refuses and things turn violent when he turns out to be a wrestler. He punches Kyle in the nose and attacks Josh. Rubin and E.L. then join in the fight as Kyle grabs a fire extinguisher and Josh jumps behind the desk and finds the videotape package. Campus security arrives, along with Kyle's parents and Tiffany. Kyle's father pulls out a gun and says he thought Kyle was kidnapped. Kyle and the boys claim his car and credit card were stolen. Kyle, showing his newly-found courage, stands up to his father, spraying him with the fire extinguisher.
Meanwhile, Josh and Tiffany go back to her room, where Tiffany reveals that she cheated on Josh once when they were 14. At this point, Beth calls the room asking for Josh to warn him about the exam. While Josh is distracted with the phone call, Tiffany picks up the package and plays the tape. Josh turns around just as the tape begins to play and attempts to stop Tiffany from watching it. However, just as Beth steps into the frame, the picture cuts out and is replaced by Barry looking with fascination, and then mooning into the camera. Barry apparently had taped over the entire sex portion of the tape.
The midterm
The film then cuts back to Josh, E.L., Rubin and Kyle riding the bus back to Ithaca. Josh has broken up with Tiffany and now has 46 hours to get back in time for the midterm. On the ride back, Rubin helps Josh study for his midterm using pro-wrestling to help Josh relate to the material. The four arrive in front of Josh's classroom 57 minutes late. Josh runs into the building, only to be confronted by a bomb squad robot. Josh then learns the building was evacuated because of a bomb threat, and, once the incident is declared a false alarm, is able to take the midterm.
After the test, Beth catches up to him outside and reveals she called in the bomb threat since it was clear he would not be on-time for the exam. The two then begin making out and the film dissolves to Barry, back on the tour, making out with the same mother who asked him about "milking the prostate".
Epilogue
Barry then segues into a series of epilogues for each character, where he reveals:
Barry then wraps up the tour and encourages everyone to attend the University of Ithaca. The entire tour group is now fascinated with Barry and the University of Ithaca. The film closes with the mother coming up to Barry and thanking him. The two then begin making out again while the mother's appalled son and the rest of the tour group watch in disbelief.
Sequel
A direct-to-video sequel called Road Trip: Beer Pong was released on August 11, 2009, this time by Paramount Famous Productions as Paramount Pictures had acquired DreamWorks' back catalog in its 2006 purchase of the company (since undone).[2] Only two of the original cast or crew appear in the sequel film, DJ Qualls has as Kyle Edwards, and Rhoda Griffis as Tour Group Mom.
Trivia
- The motel clerk (Andy Dick) reads an issue of Celebrity Skin magazine with Drew Barrymore on the cover. At the time, Drew Barrymore was engaged to Tom Green, who plays Barry.
- The scene in which Barry ceremoniously repeats the phrase "unleash the fury" before feeding Mitch the snake has been regularly played at Washington Capitals hockey games, and fans yell it at the end of the repitition. It was previously played at Atlanta Thrashers home games.
- Upon reaching the broken bridge, E.L. states that he thinks they're "About twenty minutes from our first ass raping" in a reference to Deliverance.
Locations
The fictional University of Ithaca is based on Ithaca College and Cornell University both located in Ithaca, New York. Filming took place on the campuses of High School Woodward Academy, Georgia Tech, Emory University and the University of Georgia.[3][4] The university seen in a flyover in the opening scene is actually Harvard University, the same footage was later used in the film Old School (2003).
The diner scene was shot in Lawrenceville, Georgia at the Gwinnett Diner, as it says on the coffee mugs.
See also
References
External links
