Road Trip (2000 film)

For other uses, see Road trip (disambiguation).

Road Trip
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Todd Phillips
Written by	Todd Phillips Scot Armstrong
Produced by	Daniel Goldberg Sheldon Kahn Joe Medjuck Ivan Reitman
Starring	Breckin Meyer Seann William Scott Amy Smart Paulo Costanzo DJ Qualls Tom Green Rachel Blanchard Anthony Rapp Fred Ward Andy Dick
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Edited by	Sheldon Kahn Peter Teschner
Music by	Michael Simpson
Distributed by	DreamWorks
Release date	May 11, 2000 (2000-05-11)
Running time	93 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$16 million
Box office	$119,754,278

Road Trip is a 2000 American comedy film written by Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong and directed by Todd Phillips.

Plot

The movie begins with Barry (Tom Green) giving a tour of the University of Ithaca (based on Ithaca College) to some prospective students. The students seem uninterested until Barry starts telling the story of Josh Parker (Breckin Meyer) and Tiffany Henderson (Rachel Blanchard) who were long-time friends and high-school sweethearts. They had both had to face a long-distance relationship when Josh enrolled at the University of Ithaca and Tiffany enrolled at the University of Austin (based on the University of Texas). They had made a solemn promise to be true to each other and to call each other every day. At first they keep their word, but then when Tiffany abruptly "goes silent" and does not call Josh or answer any of his calls, Josh begins worrying that Tiffany is seeing another guy, especially after Tiffany's defiantly-surly roommate tactlessly suggests that Tiffany probably is not calling Josh back because she may be "otherwise occupied", and then curtly berates Josh for calling so often, causing him to fear that the explanation for Tiffany’s silence is purposely being withheld from him. Josh's suitemate E.L. (Seann William Scott) thinks Josh is crazy for keeping a long-distance relationship with Tiffany and tries to encourage him to go to his party where Beth Wagner (Amy Smart), an Ithaca student who has a crush on Josh, will be. Josh goes to the party where girls are auctioned off to potential mates. Beth urges Josh to outbid Jacob, a devious young teacher's assistant who has an unhealthy obsession with Beth. E.L., who was in charge of the auction and dislikes Jacob, allows Josh to outbid Jacob and win Beth for the night, and the two manage to have sex in Josh's bed and videotape it.

The next morning, Josh's roommates are surprised to see Josh upbeat, and he tells them about his experience with Beth and wants to show them the videotape. Upon starting to play it, however, Josh is shocked to discover that it's a different videotape --- a caring love-message he had made for Tiffany the day before --- and thus Josh realizes that his roommate, Rubin, accidentally sent the "steamy" tape to Tiffany instead of the one he made for her the previous day. This horrifies Josh, especially when Tiffany subsequently leaves a sorrowful and penitent voicemail for him, explaining that the reason she was not calling him was that her grandfather had died unexpectedly.

In order to intercept the tape, Josh, E.L. and Rubin agree to take a road trip to Austin, Texas. They beg their nerdy floormate Kyle to go with them because he is the only person with a roadworthy car.

While on the road, they find what they think is a shortcut near Bedford, PA, but then they discover a collapsed bridge. Despite Kyle's objections, E.L. decides to jump the car over the bridge. They make it across but the wheels fall off, and shortly after getting out of the wrecked car, it explodes, destroying all their belongings. After staying at a nearby hotel, E.L. manages to trick the sightless clerk at a nearby School for the Blind into giving him the keys to the school's bus by telling her that the bus requires mechanical repairs, and then the boys quietly drive off in the bus.

Back in upstate New York, Kyle's strict parents find out that their credit card was maxed out, Kyle's car was destroyed and he is missing from school.

At Ithaca College, Beth asks Barry (the present-day tour guide who is recounting the story to Ithaca's prospective students) where Josh went. Beth is upset when Barry tells her that Josh went to see his girlfriend (Josh had previously told Beth that they'd broken up because at the time he hadn't heard yet that Tiffany's grandfather had died, and so he'd still assumed that Tiffany had abandoned him for another guy). Barry, confusing the geography as he had done earlier in the film when talking with Rubin, says that Josh went to "Austin, Massachusetts", so Beth is left believing that Josh went to Boston. She takes a bus there to inform Tiffany about Josh's infidelity, but having never met Tiffany or even knowing what she looks like, Beth mistakenly approaches a Boston University student who also happens to be named Tiffany Henderson, and sadly informs the student that her boyfriend was cheating on her, only to later be embarrassed when she discovers that the enraged girl is the wrong Tiffany.

While all this is happening, Barry, who had promised Josh that he would take care of Josh's pet snake during his absence, unsuccessfully tries to get the snake to eat a live rat. Barry then worries that the snake will starve to death, and that Josh will thus believe that Barry has betrayed the trust that Josh had put in him.

Josh tries to call his professor to ask if he can get an extension on his midterm. He needs to get a B-plus on the midterm in order to pass the class, but Jacob, who answers the professor's phone, slyly impersonates the professor's voice and thus tricks Josh --- promising to allow a 3 day extension but then not telling the professor --- because he wants Josh to fail and be expelled from the college so that Jacob can hopefully have Beth for himself. Beth returns to Ithaca to confront Barry about his stupidity, and while doing so, she hears about Jacob's scheme.

The next night, the boys find a fraternity at the University of Tennessee, Xi Chi, where Rubin claims he is a member of the fraternity and knows the secret handshake. However, it is really a national all-African-American fraternity. They play a practical joke on Kyle, claiming that he hid a KKK mask in his suitcase, which causes him to pass out from fear that the "furious" Black students will kill him. He later wakes up, gets drunk on wine, and becomes the life of the party. Later that night, he chats with, and manages to lose his virginity to, a kindly heavyset black girl named Rhonda (Mia Amber Davis). Kyle is very excited about this, and even verbally boasts that he had sex when the boys try to donate sperm the next day.

Shortly after entering the state of Texas, they stop at Barry's grandparents' house. Rubin manages to get high with Barry's grandfather as well as getting their dog high when the canine inhales the pot joints' second-hand smoke.

The boys finally arrive in Austin the next day and hurry to the college, where they are greeted by a rude office clerk who won't let them get Tiffany's mail. This leads to a brawl between him and the boys. Kyle's parents show up, very angry at what happened, but when they "start in on him", the normally meek and insecure Kyle actually manages to stand up for himself for the first time, indignantly stating that these guys are his friends and that the car and credit card were stolen. Tiffany enters the room at this moment, and Josh takes her to her dorm room, where they share a peaceable heart-to-heart conversation and finally come to realize that their long-distance relationship isn't the best thing for them. As they speak, Beth calls, warning Josh about Jacob's lie. While calmly waiting for Josh to finish his phone conversation, Tiffany takes Josh's tape (which had actually arrived a couple days earlier, but Tiffany had still been too consumed with grief about her grandfather's passing to take any interest in viewing the tape) out of its mailer for the first time and begins to play it. Still on the phone with Beth, Josh at first doesn't notice, but then he suddenly recognizes the beginning of his sex-movie with Beth as it appears on Tiffany's TV. This first part is merely an innocuous image of Josh standing fully clothed and speaking about what qualities he desires in a good woman; Josh remembers, though, that the erotic scenes begin just a few seconds into the tape. But as Josh frantically rushes across the room to stop the VCR, the picture abruptly changes to an image of Barry, and Josh realizes that the tape has been re-recorded, and that Barry had unwittingly taped over the sex portion with Beth by mooning the camera and acting like an idiot. So Josh's frantic dash to Austin to keep Tiffany from receiving the tape hadn't been necessary after all, since the sex portion of the tape had already been erased! Tiffany (still unaware of the tape's original content; she'd assumed that the only reason Josh had not wanted her to watch the tape was that he'd already known that Barry had filmed the crude stuff, and so Josh had merely wanted to spare her "tender eyes" from such vulgarities) and Josh then amicably break off their romance merely because the long-distance relationship isn't working out for either of them, but they remain best friends.

Two days later, the boys return to Ithaca where Josh thinks he's 57 minutes late for his midterm. However, Beth has anonymously called in a bomb threat to delay the exam because she doesn't want Josh to fail. Josh scores a B-plus on his test; he and Beth start dating; Jacob became the leader of an extremist cult in which he tries to convince everyone to commit mass-suicide with him, but after he dies, everyone else changes their minds; E.L. starts dating a student-nurse; Rubin becomes High Times' man of the year for creating a potent but undetectable new cannabis plant; and Kyle (now happily dating Rhonda) reconciles with his father. Barry, back in the present day where he is giving his tour of the college, says that he hopes all of this will encourage the students in the tour group to attend the University of Ithaca.

Cast

• Breckin Meyer as Josh Parker
• Seann William Scott as E.L.
• Amy Smart as Beth Wagner
• Paulo Costanzo as Rubin Carver
• DJ Qualls as Kyle Edwards
• Tom Green as Barry Manilow
• Rachel Blanchard as Tiffany Henderson, Josh's long distance girlfriend
• Anthony Rapp as Jacob
• Fred Ward as Earl Edwards
• Andy Dick as Motel Clerk/Bus Passenger
• Ethan Suplee as Ed
• Horatio Sanz as French Toast Guy
• Rhoda Griffis as Tour Group Mom
• Edmund Lyndeck as Jack Manilow, Barry's Grandpa
• Ellen Albertini Dow as Mrs. Manilow, Barry's Grandma
• Jessica Cauffiel as Wrong Tiffany
• Mia Amber Davis as Rhonda
• Mary Lynn Rajskub as Blind Brenda
• Tim Ware as Officer Bortz

Locations

The fictional University of Ithaca is based on both 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. 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.

Reception

Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes calculate and overall rating of 59% based on 88 reviews, with 20 top critics giving it a rating of 65%. The consensus was "Some humor is hit or miss, depending on the audience tastes, but the movie is funny overall. Mixed reviews for the cast, especially for MTV's Tom Green."

Box office

The film opened at #3 at the North American box office making $15,484,004 USD in its opening weekend, behind Gladiator and Dinosaur.

Sequel

Main article: Road Trip: Beer Pong

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). Only two of the original cast or crew appear in the sequel film, DJ Qualls as Kyle Edwards, and Rhoda Griffis as Tour Group Mom.

See also

• Road Trip (soundtrack)
• Eurotrip

External links

• Road Trip at IMDb
• Road Trip at Rotten Tomatoes
• Road Trip at Box Office Mojo