The Trip is one of the odder on the road, buddy movies. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing themselves, take off on a road trip to northern England's finer restaurants. Coogan is assigned to sample their dishes and author a review on them for the Observer. He invites Brydon along for the ride after his girlfriend and several other friends decline the invitation first.

90% of the film is just back and forth banter between the two British comedians, mostly impressions. They compare their Michael Caine impressions and they are amazingly spot on. They also try out Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellan, Roger Moore, and a host of others. Intercut between these impressions and other comedic diatribes is a deeper and more personal story. Brydon has a wife and newborn waiting for him back in London but Coogan is in a rough patch with his younger American girlfriend and proceeds through a few one night stands during the trip. There are scenes showing his insecurity with her and a few which show the two friends comparing careers and who is more successful. Coogan is more internationally known but Brydon gets recognized more on the street in northern England.

The last film starring these two was Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story which was about how utterly hard it would be to film the novel Tristram Shandy. That film was comedic genius and still makes me laugh to think about it. The Trip does not rise to that Tristram Shandy's level, but there are plenty of moments to enjoy here, especially if you are at all familiar with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. If you have never heard of these guys before, you will not get too much out of The Trip except for some laughs at their impressions and a spectacular scene in their Range Rover about improving the line "We rise at dawn."

What a winning combination can be found in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in Michael Winterbottom's comedy The Trip. Utilizing every inch of British humor that they can, Coogan and Brydon take the witty script even further, making real characters out of themselves and playing it straight, whether it's hilarious or a little heartbreaking. Set up as a mockumentary, Steve Coogan (playing himself) is asked to make a country-wide tour of England and explore the best restaurants in the country. Unable to take his girlfriend, he ends up taking his actor best friend Rob Brydon (also playing himself), and the two must endure the trip together, which becomes quite a challenge for Steve and Rob. They make quite the pair from there, often feeding into one another's humor brilliantly and in only a classy way, as they try to pass the time. They deal with their (sometimes dismal) outside life, which helps the film get some weight, but mainly focuses on the silly things they do when they are on the trip, which is usually impersonating people they admire or dreaming about roles and films they wish they would and I suppose could make. Even when their humor starts to repeat itself, it is surprisingly still intriguing. This is probably because it is such a refreshing contrast from the loud and obnoxious comedies we have been accustomed to in the Hollywood market. This film is quieter, but it's so damn funny. It finds its humor from not playing dumb to the audience, and higher minded viewers will appreciate that while simpler minded viewers might even find the film dull or droning. What I found is a hilarious, classy, British comedy that never tries too hard, and in doing so, it succeeds where other comedies only wish they could. A-

This is a fictional story but actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are playing themselves on a road trip across the North of England. Steve is struggling for work in film and his girlfriend Mischa (Margo Stilley) has separated from him to return to America. He was expecting her to help him on an assignment he's been given: to complete six different restaurant reviews. With his girlfriend pulling out Steve's last resort is Rob. They're not really friends or colleagues but they've known each other for a long time. Rob prides himself on his impersonations of other people. But with Steve wanting to be taken seriously in mainstream movies, this drives him insane, sparking a rivalry between the two men as they constantly work to correct each other.

The Trip initially seems like its much ado about nothing. It's essentially a road movie, full of rich food and wine and two self- important funny men. Comparisons to Alexander Payne's Sideways (2004) are genuine but this picture is largely improvised by the actors. However, an outline must have been provided by director Michael Winterbottom because beneath the silliness of the comedy a deliberately dark subtext is visible. The humour is intelligent, not because of what is said, but in how it reveals character. Both Steve and Rob are flawed in different ways. We understand why Steve's relationship has fallen apart. He's continuously jealous because he can't stand Mischa being around other men. He automatically assumes that she's involved with them. Yet he also takes the time to sleep with two women himself. Rob is a family man but seems to have the compulsive need to impress people by using the same jokes and impersonations over and over again. The duo shares hilarious chemistry together because their personas complement each other so well. Steve is too much like his egotistical self and Rob is always trying to be other people when he doesn't have to be.

Comedy is at its funniest when actors find some variation on how to play their roles straight. The Trip's self-depreciative tone is perfect. Neither man has any idea about reviewing the meals. It's really just a device to give the movie a framework. But their incompetence is hysterically funny because they try to sound smarter and cleverer than they actually are, especially when outdoing each other's impersonations. Rob impersonates everyone from Michael Caine, Woody Allen, Sean Connery, Hugh Grant and even Christoph Waltz. These are enjoyable because they're recognisable and silly. But there's an old fashioned method about Winterbottom's direction that I like too. A lot of the restaurant scenes are held for a very long time, which means that the decision to improvise is a smart one. It allows both actors to play out their mimetic roles with as much time and space as they need. They can milk the gags for as long as they can, which also makes them funnier. As a drama the film is a little more weightless than Sideways, mostly because the side characters are underdeveloped. Steve can only interact with his girlfriend over the phone so there are fewer opportunities to really care about her as a character. And spreading the trip over six days instead of four or five means that the film losses some energy through its repetition. At just under two hours it could have been shorter. Nonetheless, the film is still frequently hilarious and certifies that Winterbottom is as diverse as any other working director today.