Bad Trip clearly was concocted by Eric Andre, Lil Rel Howery, and Tiffany Haddish in those late night, drug induced laugh fests. I’m picturing the three of them hanging out, and throwing on a double feature of Dumb & Dumber then Borat, and one of them saying “Yo, what if we, like, combined them?” And that’s how you get Bad Trip, a sketch comedy candid camera via a road trip across the Eastern seaboard of the US.
Eric Andre puts the Chris in Lloyd Christmas; he’s a lazy dreamer living in Florida working a bunch of part time gigs. One day, his high school crush Maria (Michaela Conlin) reenters his life suddenly, right before she goes back to New York City. Seeing this as his trip of a lifetime, he convinces his “Harry Dunn” Bud (Lil Rel Howery) to join him to road trip up to the Big Apple. In order to do so, they steal Bud’s sister Trina’s (Tiffany Haddish) “Bad Bitch” pink Cady, hoping that she will still be in jail before they return. One prison break later, and we have ourselves a cross country improv chase to New York.
What you expect from Bad Trip’s premise is what the movie delivers. During the road trip we have all sorts of gags set up as well as candid cameras everywhere to capture the footage. Of the 3 leads, props to Eric Andre the most: he puts his self-respect on the line multiple times for a laugh (though all 3 are on top of their game and deliver). I think we see all parts of his body, and more than one orifice gets violated in some humiliating fashion. 11 year old boys will worship this movie for the gags it deploys, but for me, the best gags aren’t the body jokes. There’s a few inspired setups where the scenes take twists and turns for the audience that make the product more enjoyable, as we see the unknowing bystanders take the same journey the Netflix audience takes as the joke goes further and further.
The biggest wrinkle in Bad Trip is the movie does with its bystander reaction shots. At its heart, the movie goes out of its way to show there’s an inherent goodness, and patience to every person. When truly terrible things happen to Andre, Haddish, or Bud, most of these people will try to help or at worst usually just leave the situation when things get tense, you know, like normal people. The movie subtly breaks down all those potentially hostile “cable news” setups as well, as deep in the south or in the projects, people are still empathetic and understanding to a point.
So thanks Eric Andre, Lil Rel Howery, and Tiffany Haddish. Through your humiliating commitment to the bits we learned that people may not be as bad as they’re presented through a TV News Program. I also look forward to what terrifying White Chicks like transformation you will make in your next film. Maybe a Comic Con appearance? Or the Jamaican Bobsled Team? I trust your inventive crazy minds to come up with something amazing!