EuroTrip
| EuroTrip | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Jeff Schaffer |
| Written by | Alec Berg David Mandel Jeff Schaffer |
| Produced by | Alec Berg Daniel Goldberg David Mandel Jackie Marcus Joe Medjuck |
| Starring | Scott Mechlowicz Jacob Pitts Michelle Trachtenberg Travis Wester Jessica Böhrs Lucy Lawless |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks |
Release dates | February 20, 2004 |
Running time | 90 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$25,000,000 |
EuroTrip is a 2004 American comedy film produced by the same people as Road Trip and Old School. It tells a story of an American high-school graduate and his friends traveling around Europe.
Plot
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (September 2007) |
EuroTrip begins with the main character Scott being dumped by his girlfriend Fiona (Kristin Kreuk) at his high school graduation in his home state of Ohio. When he's at home, he e-mails his German pen-pal Mieke (which he mistakeningly pronounces as "Mike"), and his friend Cooper says that "Mike" is a sexual predator who will ask to come to America to have sex with him. That night, at a party, Scott finds out that Fiona cheated on him with another guy, Donny (Matt Damon), whose band is playing at the party. Scott finds out when Donny's band sings the popular song "Scotty Doesn't Know". When he arrives home, he receives another e-mail from "Mike", who wants to arrange a meeting with Scott. Drunk and angry, he tells Mieke that "he" is a sick perverted freak, but later realizes Mieke is actually a gorgeous German girl. Thus the EuroTrip begins when Scotty and his friend Cooper set off to Mieke's town of Berlin, Germany to win back Mieke's heart.
Unable to afford a passenger ticket, Scott and Cooper receive a discounted rate by travelling as couriers to London, England which appears to be no problem as Cooper insists that Europe is "the size of the Eastwood Mall" and hopes to have "crazy European sex" after explaining that the United States was founded by prudish Europeans who didn't like the steamy European sex, and that he intends to return to the land of his "perverted forefathers" to claim his "birthright."
In London, the two of them go to a pub since there is no drinking age in England (this is incorrect however, the UK has a drinking age of 18). But the pub they stumble into is a private pub for the members of the Manchester United football team fan club, so they do not receive a warm welcome from the fans, who are hooligans. The two teens say that they are a Manchester United fan club from Ohio, and after making up their own version of the football team's anthem (based on Sheena Easton's Morning Train), the group welcomes them and they have a wild night of drinking. The next day, Scott and Cooper wake up on a double-decker bus, finding out that the fan club is going to Paris for a Manchester United game.
After driving through France on the wrong side of the road with football hooligans yelling "Get out the way you're on the wrong side" and other similar comments and all other motorists having to swerve out the way. Scotty and Cooper meet up with their friends in Paris, twins Jenny and Jamie. While waiting in line for the Louvre, Scotty gets into a robot dance showdown with a mime street performer (Robot Man) and wins by kicking the mime in the groin to which he groans, "error error....error." The four of them go to a restaurant and Jenny and Jamie decide that they will also go to Berlin with Scott and Cooper to find Mieke. They also 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. Later, the gang arrives at a Paris railway station, where Jenny meets an enchanting European man, but has to leave to catch their train.
Crans Sur Mer, France
After a long train trip — during which Jamie is groped and fondled by an Italian man (Fred Armisen) — they end up at a quaint (and fictional) French town, Crans Sur Mer, where they visit a nude beach. To their dismay, it is full of naked men, also looking for nude girls, who are at another nude beach. After Jenny meets up with them and takes off her cover-up shirt to tan in her bikini and Jamie makes a big scene of covering her up, they are chased down the beach by naked men desperate to see a nude girl.
A much-needed stop along the way in Amsterdam, Netherlands leads to Cooper going to "Club Vandersexxx" (which is, unbeknownst to him, an especially brutal BDSM club), where he is seduced and later tortured by Mrs. Vandersexxx (played by Lucy Lawless), mostly due to his inability to pronounce the safe-word (FLÜGGÅƏNK∂€ČHIŒβØL∫Ên). Scotty and Jenny go to a café and eat hash brownies that are drugged and proceed to "freak out". However, they learn much to their embarrassment that the brownies were not hash brownies and that the café was just an ordinary Dutch bakery. While Jamie is at a camera store seeking to have his prized Leica M7 camera cleaned, shop keeper Anna (Jana Pallaske) takes him to the alley behind the store to engage in oral sex. Unfortunately, Jamie, who is in charge of all of the money and passports, is robbed of everything by a mugger (Diedrich Bader).
With no choice but to hitchhike to Berlin, they manage to get a lorry driver to pull over. Unfortunately, he does not speak English and Scotty must use what little German he knows to communicate with him. He misunderstands the burly driver and believes they are indeed going to Berlin based on the fact he said it numerous times - though he was actually trying to explain he was going "nowhere near Berlin" as he is wanted for stabbing a woman and sexually assaulting a horse there. Consequently they end up in Bratislava, Slovakia where they are horrified by the desolation of Eastern Europe.
They talk to a Slovak man (Rade Šerbedžija) and discover that there is no train network. It is also revealed the Slovaks are only just now receiving American TV shows from the 1980s, as evinced by the Slovakian saying "Miami Wise number one new show" and "Stop. Hammer time!" They only have US$1.83 but due to the (exaggerated) exchange rate, they get the executive suite at a lavish Slovakian hotel. They arrive at a nightclub that is apparently owned by the man Jenny met at the railway station in Paris. She discovers that he is married and bisexual. In a fit of depression, Jenny downs half a bottle of absinthe — becoming so intoxicated that she makes out with Jamie, her brother. The next morning, the same Slovak man (Rade Šerbedžija) drives them to Berlin.
After reaching Berlin, they find out that Mieke has gone on a boat tour for the summer and will only be reachable in Rome for a short time. In order to afford flight tickets, Jamie sells his precious Leica camera to earn enough money to travel to Rome.
In Rome, the four go to Vatican City, since Mieke will be there before she leaves. They get in because Jenny says that they are a private tour group, that Cooper is mentally retarded and that Jamie, who has memorized a tour guide book of Europe, is their guide. After Cooper manages to ring the bell of Saint Marco and lighting up white smoke in Vatican City, which makes everyone think Scotty has been elected as the new pope, Scott finds Mieke and jumps down a banister to meet up with her. Although the Swiss Vatican guards realized what was going on and attempted to stop them and severely punish them for their actions, the football hooligans from earlier in the film return (because of their hatred toward Italians) and thwart their attempts. Soon after, Scotty introduces himself to Mieke and they spend time having sex in a confessional before Mieke boards her boat. A man whom Jamie took on a tour of the Vatican turns out to be Arthur Frommer (played by Patrick Malahide), author of the guidebook Jamie has memorized and he hires Jamie to tour every museum and cathedral in Europe. It is here where the adventure ends and the group splits up to head back home. On the flight home, Cooper and Jenny have sex in one of the aircraft's toilets after both complaining about not getting any crazy European sex.
Oberlin College, Ohio
At the end of the film, Scott moves to Oberlin College, and is talking on his phone to Cooper, who is also at college. Mieke surprises him when she says that she is his roommate, due to another misunderstanding about her name. The film ends with Scott dropping his phone, Cooper still on the line, and of Scott and Mieke them kissing. Cooper's voice is in the background, since he is still on the line on Scott's phone, and he hears the two of them kissing, but thinks that Scott's roommate is a guy (since Scott didn't tell Cooper on the phone that Mieke is his roommate) and that Scott is kissing a boy.
Cast
Main Characters
- Scott Mechlowicz – Scott (Scotty) Thomas
- Jacob Pitts – Cooper Harris
- Michelle Trachtenberg – Jenny
- Travis Wester – Jamie
Ohio
- Kristin Kreuk – Fiona
- Nial Iskhakov – Bert Thomas (Scott's brother)
- Matt Damon – Donny
- Jeffrey Tambor – Scott's father
London
- Vinnie Jones – Mad Maynard (Hooligans' leader)
Paris
- J.P. Manoux – Robot Man
- Patrick Rapold – Christoph
- Fred Armisen – Creepy Italian Guy on Train
Amsterdam
- Lucy Lawless – Madame Vandersexxx
- Go Go Dyei Jen-Michel – Rasta Waiter
- Jana Pallaske – Anna the Camera Store Girl
- Diedrich Bader – Mugger
- Joanna Lumley – Hostel Clerk
Bratislava
- Dominic Raacke – Trucker
- Steve Hytner – Green Fairy
- Rade Šerbedžija – Tibor
Berlin
- Walter Sittler – Mieke's father
- Adam Dotlacil – Heinrich
Vatican City
- Predrag Bjelac – Italian man
- Joel Kirby – Swiss Guard
- Jessica Böhrs – Mieke
- Patrick Malahide – Arthur Frommer
- Jack Marston – Pope John Paul II
- Mindy Sterling – Woman in confessional
Box Office
- The film initially tanked at the box office because of varying factors, including the big success of The Passion of the Christ and a backlash against the R-rated teen comedy as proven later that spring by the flopping of 20th Century Fox's The Girl Next Door as well as the fact it was widely panned by critics. The film finished with $17,718,233 at the box office.
Theme song
"Scotty Doesn't Know" is a song that was written exclusively for the movie. It is performed by the band Lustra, but in the movie, the lead singer was portrayed by Matt Damon, whose character has surreptitiously stolen a girl from "Scotty," hence the title and subject matter.
The song contains numerous lewd references to how Scotty's girlfriend Fiona (played by Kristin Kreuk) has been cheating on him with Damon's character for an extended period of time. In the movie, the song becomes something of a popular phenomenon: a week or so later in Bratislava, the song has been remixed and is playing in a popular nightclub. By the end of the movie, it has become so widespread and (presumably) popular that Scotty's best friend Cooper is able to use it as his cell phone ringtone. The song is noted by several characters in the film (including members of Scotty's own family and even Scotty himself) for having a "catchy tune".
Trivia
| This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (June 2007) |
- Matt Damon actually shaved his head during filming of the movie.
- In the scene where Scotty reads e-mail of Mieke about her arrival to USA, the German word "zusammen" is misspelled as "zussamen" both in e-mail and the dictionary he looks up. It is also listed as a verb meaning "to come together for a meeting" when the actual word just means together.
- The courier service used by Cooper and Scotty to get to London is named Midnite Express. This is a reference to the Oliver Stone movie "Midnight Express" about an American student imprisoned in Turkey for attempting to smuggle hashish out of the country.
- When they are boarding the train station in Paris, the scene was actually filmed in Prague's main railway station (Hlavni Nadrazi).
- The Feisty Goat pub Scotty and Cooper visit is misspelled as 'The Fiesty Goat.'
- The "safe word" that Cooper attempts to say is "FLŰGGÅƏNK∂€ČHIŒβØL∫ÊN," a completely made up word that contains characters from many European languages, as well as other special symbols
- Letter Ű (U with Double acute accent is used primarily in Hungarian.
- "Flug" means "Flight" in German
- Å is used in many Scandinavian languages and represents the "aw" sound. To many people it is most familiar as the "Ångström sign".
- "gå" is "to go" in Swedish, Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages.
- Ə (schwa) is not a letter of any European language and mostly known as a phonetical sign.
- ∂ is a mathematical sign of partial derivative
- € is a Euro currency symbol.
- Č is used in East European languages and represents sound [tʃ] (ch)
- Πwas used in medieval and early modern Latin, and in modern French, and also the vowel sound it represents.
- β (Beta) is Greek letter representing sound "b".
- Ø is used in Scandinavic (Danish, Faroese and Norwegian) alphabets and sounds as better known German, Swedish and Islandic "Ö"
- ∫ is a mathematical integral sign
- Ê is used in French, Portuguese, and Welsh language as a variant of letter “e”.
- BOLSEN, BÖLSEN or BØLSEN looks like a Germanic (German, Danish, etc.) surname, "sen" is a typical suffix of Danish names literally meaning "son".
- Even though the group states "And we can go to Denmark - Yeah I love Denmark", it is the only one of the countries suggested at the dinner table they do not visit.
- The name "Fiona" and "princess" used by Scotty's father may be a reference to Shrek - a famous animation movie of DreamWorks.
- The "mime fight" in Paris contains two references to The Karate Kid:
- Cooper at one point encourages Scotty to "sweep the leg, Scott!", a reference to the line "sweep the leg, Johnny!".
- The final scene of the fight has the mime preparing a "crane technique" maneuver identical to the one used by Daniel in The Karate Kid's last scene. The joke here, of course, is that where in the original film, Daniel's opponent walked into that maneuver in a clearly contrived fashion, Scotty simply does the obvious thing and kicks the mime in his exposed groin.
- In the German version of the movie, the scene where Scotty and Cooper visit Mieke's father in Berlin, Mieke's younger brother, Heinrich, gives himself a Hitler-like moustache and marches in the background while giving the Nazi salute was removed.
- As everyone leaves Paris on the train to Amsterdam, the French song "Ça Plane Pour Moi" can be heard, this is a reference to National Lampoon's European Vacation where the same song can be heard, when the Griswalds are in Paris.
- Two characters in the film are Hans and Gruber, a possible reference to the villain of the film Die Hard.
Goofs In The Film
- Cooper and Scott appear to fly from the USA to the UK on a Lufthansa airplane. This is wrong as Lufthansa does not have any such service. They would fly directly into Germany ( probably Berlin, in fact) and would thus render most of the film's subsequent storyline and action redundant.
- In the opening credits the Republic of Ireland is shown covered by the Union Jack, as if it is a part of the United Kingdom. This is wrong as it is an independent state.
- When the group is outside the Vatican City, right after Jenny tells the Swiss guard that Cooper is mentally retarded, Cooper is seen biting off the upper cup part of his ice cream cone. When they walk inside the Vatican the guard tells Cooper to have a special day and it can be clearly seen that his ice cream cone is whole again.
- While in the movie Mieke and Scotty dorm together because of a mistake, Oberlin College has a limited number of "All Gender" rooms which would permit the couple to live in the same room. [1].
- When Scotty and Cooper get to London, Scotty says that England has no drinking age. This is not true, as you must be 18 to drink alcohol in England - although this may be a comment on Cooper's lack of knowledge. Also, Cooper and Scotty have just graduated high school, implying that they are probably 18 which would also allow them to drink alchohol.
- When Fiona is dancing on stage she rips her jacket off, but for a brief moment after that, she is seen with the jacket on.
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