EuroTrip

EuroTrip
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jeff Schaffer Uncredited: Alec Berg David Mandel
Produced by	Alec Berg David Mandel Daniel Goldberg Jackie Marcus Joe Medjuck
Written by	Jeff Schaffer Alec Berg David Mandel
Starring	Scott Mechlowicz Jacob Pitts Michelle Trachtenberg Travis Wester Jessica Boehrs
Music by	James L. Venable
Cinematography	David Eggby
Editing by	Roger Bondelli
Studio	The Montecito Picture Company
Distributed by	DreamWorks Pictures
Release date(s)	February 20, 2004 (2004-02-20)
Running time	90 minutes 92 minutes (Unrated cut)
Country	United States
Language	English French German Italian Japanese
Budget	$25 million
Box office	$20,796,847

EuroTrip is a 2004 teen adventure comedy film directed by Jeff Schaffer and starring Scott Mechlowicz, Jacob Pitts, Michelle Trachtenberg, Travis Wester, and Jessica Boehrs. Written by Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Schaffer, the film follows an American teenager, Scotty "Scott" Thomas (portrayed by Mechlowicz), who travels across Europe in search of his German pen pal, Mieke (portrayed by Boehrs). Scott's quest takes him to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Bratislava, Berlin, and Rome, encountering awkward and embarrassing situations along the way. The film received a Teen Choice Award Nomination for Choice Movie Your Parents Didn't Want You to See.

Plot

The film begins in Hudson, Ohio, where Scotty "Scott" Thomas (Scott Mechlowicz) is dumped by his girlfriend, Fiona (Kristen Kreuk) following his high school graduation. Later that evening, Scott and his best friend, Cooper Harris (Jacob Pitts), attend a graduation party and learn that Fiona has been sleeping with Donny (Matt Damon), the lead singer of a college band, and are treated to a performance of the song "Scotty Doesn't Know", a song that details the affair. Drunk and angry, Scott return home and receives an e-mail reply from his German pen pal, Mieke (Jessica Boehrs), whom he believes to be a guy thinking her name is pronounced as "Mike". Mieke feels sorry for all that has happened and wants to arrange a meeting in order to make Scott feel better. Thinking of a comment Cooper said earlier about the Internet being full of homosexuals, Scott tells Mieke to stay away from him. However, Scott's younger brother, Bert (Nial Iskhakov) explains that "Mieke" in German is not "Mike", but actually similar to "Michelle" in English. Realizing his mistake and that he has feelings for Mieke, Scott attempts desperately to contact her again, only to find out that Mieke has unexpectedly blocked his address. Pushed by Cooper to search for Mieke, Scott resolves to travel to Europe to fix the situation and confront Mieke face-to-face.

Unable to afford a passenger ticket, Scott and Cooper receive their discounted rate by traveling as couriers to London, where they end up befriending the members of a Manchester United football hooligan firm, led by Mad Maynard (Vinnie Jones), after accidentally stumbling upon their pub and escaping a fight by claiming themselves as members of a Manchester United fan club from Ohio. After a wild night of drinking, Scott and Cooper woke up on a double-decker bus on their way to Paris for a Manchester United game, where they eventually meet up with their fraternal twin friends Jenny and Jamie (Michelle Trachtenberg and Travis Wester), who decide that they will accompany them to Berlin to find Mieke. They agree on visiting other parts of Europe, since this will be the last summer the four of them will spend together before going off to different colleges. Following a long train ride with an overenthusiastic Italian man (Fred Armisen) attempting to grope Jamie, the group ends up in the fictional French town of Crans Sur Mer, but leave immediately after realizing that women go to the other nude beach because during the summer, perverted foreigners flock the beach to only either grope or stare at the females' private parts. In Amsterdam, Cooper heads to Club Vandersexxx, which is actually a brutal BDSM club and he is subjected to sadistic torture, which is allowed to continue only because he cannot pronounce the "safe word" to get it to stop. Meanwhile, Scott and Jenny mistakenly go to a café and eat what they believe to be hash brownies and proceed to "freak out," only to realize that they are normal brownies. While Jamie is at a camera store seeking to have his prized Leica M7 camera cleaned, the female shopkeeper took him to the alley to engage in oral sex. However, Jamie is robbed of everything by a mugger (Diedrich Bader).

The group then complains at the situation Jamie gave them, with Cooper complaining about how can he get laid while he gets tortured in a bondage club. With no choice but to hitchhike to Berlin, they manage to get a truck driver to pull over. However, he does not speak English, and Scott intervenes saying that he speaks some German and crudely asks the driver if he can take them to Berlin. The driver mentions Berlin in his speech numerous times, he is actually saying he is going nowhere near Berlin, as he is wanted there for assaulting a woman and raping a horse. The group ultimately end up in Bratislava, where they are horrified by the desolation of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War. They talk to a Slovak man named Tibor (Rade Šerbedžija), who loves 1980s American television series and uses familiar 1980s catchphrases. Deciding to have "some more fun", they arrive at a nightclub and dance to a Euro version of "Scotty Doesn't Know". The club is owned by a man named Kristoff (Patrick Rapold), whom Jenny met at the railway station in Paris earlier. Jenny nearly falls in love for Kristoff, until she discovers that he is married and bisexual. In a fit of depression, Jenny downs half a bottle of absinthe, becoming so intoxicated she makes out with her brother, who are both horrified after snapping back to reality. The next day, Tibor finally drives them to Berlin, where Mieke's father informs Scott and Cooper that his daughter has gone with the tour group for the summer and will only be reachable in Rome for a short time. In order to afford flight tickets to Rome to find Mieke, Jamie sells his precious Leica camera.

In Rome, the four friends head to the Vatican City, where Mieke will tour before she leaves. However, the group are unable to get through inside the Vatican to follow Mieke, but in the end, they get inside after Jamie is able to convince the Swiss Guards that he is a tour guide. Once inside, Jamie is asked to replace one of the tour guides who was too sick to go to work. Meanwhile, Cooper accidentally rings the bell of Saint Marco and sets fire to a Papal mitre. Throwing it onto the fireplace, it lights up in white smoke over the Vatican, making everyone around the world presume that a new pope has been elected. Attempting to escape, Scott gets tangled in a golden curtain, and stumbles out on the balcony where he is presumed to be the new pope. Spotting Mieke, Scott jumps down a banister to meet up with her. Although the Swiss Guards realize what is going on and attempt to stop Scott and Cooper and severely punish them for their actions, the football hooligans from London return and eventually rescue Scott and Cooper. Scott finally introduces himself to Mieke in person and upon confessing his love for her, Mieke has sex with Scott in a confessional. Before Mieke boards her boat, she told Scott to continue to write to her. A man whom Jamie took on a tour of the Vatican turns out to be Arthur Frommer (Patrick Malahide), author of the guidebook Jamie has memorized, and he hires Jamie to tour every museum and cathedral across Europe. Scott, Cooper, and Jenny finally get their passports and prepare to return back to Ohio. On the group's return trip, Jenny entices Cooper to have sex with her in one of the plane's toilets, finally realizing his dream of "crazy European sex". The film ends when Scott moves to Oberlin College in the fall and is surprised to see Mieke, who states that, due to another misunderstanding about her name, she is his roommate, and Scott and Mieke embrace each other.

Cast

• Scott Mechlowicz as Scott "Scotty" Thomas
• Jacob Pitts as Cooper Harris
• Michelle Trachtenberg as Jenny
• Travis Wester as Jamie
• Jessica Boehrs as Mieke
• Kristin Kreuk as Fiona
• Nial Iskhakov as Bert Thomas
• Vinnie Jones as Mad Maynard
• Patrick Rapold as Kristoff
• Matt Damon as Donny
• Fred Armisen as Creepy Italian man on train
• Joanna Lumley as Hostel clerk
• Lucy Lawless as Madame Vandersexxx
• Rade Šerbedžija as Tibor
• J. P. Manoux as Robot mime from the Louvre
• Jana Pallaske, as Anna, the Camera Store Girl
• Diedrich Bader as Alleyway thief
• Patrick Malahide as Arthur Frommer
• Jeffrey Tambor (uncredited) as Mr. Thomas
• Mindy Sterling (uncredited) as Old Woman in Confessional
• Anetta Keys and Veronica Vanoza (uncredited) as Club Vandersexxx Girls

Production

Writers Mandel, Berg, and Schaffer all directed while only Schaffer could achieve director credit, according to the DVD filmmaker commentary. All scenes were filmed in Prague, Czech Republic, especially in the streets close to the Rudolfinum. The opening scene set in the United States was filmed at the International School of Prague. The scene when the main characters are boarding the train station in Paris was filmed in Prague's main railway station (Hlavní nádraží)^{[citation needed]}. The scene inside Vatican City was actually filmed in Prague's National Museum.^{[citation needed]}

Reception

Critical response

EuroTrip received mixed reviews. In her review in Salon.com, Stephanie Zacharek wrote, "The giddy ridiculousness of “Eurotrip” is a pleasant surprise: The picture starts out slow and unsteady in its rhythms. But just when you begin to wonder if it’s ever going to get funny, or if it’s going to be merely desperate all the way through, it lifts off like a wobbly helicopter—and somehow it keeps flying."

In the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 47% approval rating based on 111 viewer reviews and a 23% rating based on 26 reviews from top critics. On Metacritic, the film scored 45 out of 100 based on 30 reviews.

Ultra Culture blogger Charlie Lyne, who also introduced a screening of the film in 2011 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, wrote that "EuroTrip is satire at its most brazenly self-loathing and audaciously entertaining."

Box office

The film was released in the United States and Canada on February 20, 2004 in 2,512 theaters. Over its opening weekend, the film grossed $6,711,384. It went on to gross $17,771,387 in the United States and Canada and $3,025,460 in other territories for a worldwide total of $20,796,847.

Home media

The film was released on DVD in the U.S. on June 1, 2004, in an R-rated theatrical version (90 minutes) and an "Unrated" extended version (92 minutes). The film was to premiere on HBO on April 2, 2005, but the studio scrapped the premiere due to the death of Pope John Paul II. In the film, there is an image of Pope and a Vatican setting.

Soundtrack

Eurotrip
Soundtrack album by various artists
Released	February 24, 2004
Genre	Punk rock, pop
Label	Milan
Professional reviews
The reviews parameter has been deprecated. Please move reviews into the “Reception” section of the article. See Moving reviews into article space. Allmusic link

Track listing

1. "Scotty Doesn't Know" – Lustra
2. "My Generation" – Chapeaumelon (The Who cover)
3. "Wild One" – Wakefield
4. "99 Red Balloons" – Goldfinger (Nena cover)
5. "In The City" – The Jam
6. "Shooting Stars" – Cauterize
7. "Nonchalant" – Chapeaumelon
8. "Scotty Doesn't Know" (Euro Version) – MC Jeffsky
9. "Make My Dreams Come True" – Apollo 440
10. "Du" – David Hasselhoff (Peter Maffay cover)
11. "Les Promesses" – Autour De Lucie
12. "I Love Marijuana" – Linval Thompson
13. "Turn It Up" – Ugly Duckling
14. "Get Loose" – The Salads

Additional songs

The film features additional tracks not included on the soundtrack album:

• "Morning Train (9 to 5)", a song by Sheena Easton plays after the football hooligans, having forced Scott and Cooper to "sing the Manchester United song", approve of Scott's altered ending to the song
• "England 5 - Germany 1", a song by the seminal English Oi! band The Business, plays on the hooligan bus trip to Paris
• "Prosper", a song by Maurice Chevalier is playing over the background in the scene at the Louvre when the panning camera stops and returns to ogle a beautiful brunette
• "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood plays during the robot fight scene outside the Louvre.
• "Ça plane pour moi", a song by Belgian musician Plastic Bertrand, can be heard when the four friends first get on the train.
• Donna Summer's 1979 hit "Hot Stuff" is featured in the scene where the four are on the train to Amsterdam.
• "Let Forever Be", a song sung by Noel Gallagher of Oasis on lead vocals and performed by The Chemical Brothers. It can be heard in the unrated edition where the twins are seen drunkenly kissing each other
• Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch"; the song can be heard in the film when Cooper is walking in Amsterdam looking for Club Vandersexx.
• "Keine Überdosis Deutschland", a song by Normahl, can be heard during the journey through Germany to Bratislava
• "The Sacred War" during the visit in Slovakia
• "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet is used in the scene where they take off in an airplane
• "Horndog" by Overseer plays during the club scene in Eastern Europe
• "In the City" by The Jam is used in the montage after arriving in London

External links

• Official website
• EuroTrip at the Internet Movie Database
• EuroTrip at AllRovi
• EuroTrip at Box Office Mojo
• EuroTrip at Rotten Tomatoes
• EuroTrip at Metacritic