Hidden camera pranks were made most famous by shows like Candid Camera. Impractical Jokers also became popular by adopting similar approaches to their format. This type of content has been seen in a number movies as well, with actor Sacha Baron Cohen now famous due to films like Borat and Bruno in which he plays characters that somewhat trap people into engaging with them. Bad Grandpa would make things even more interesting when combining a scripted plot with the implementation of hidden camera pranks on unsuspecting people. Bad Trip, one of Netflix’s latest movies, is keeping with these hilarious traditions.
Chris and Bud are best pals living in Florida, working dead end jobs and going nowhere in life. This is destined to change when Chris sees his high school crush Maria who lets him know she’s now living in New York City. Deciding to see if there’s any chance with her, Chris grabs Bud and they set off on a road trip for NYC in the hopes of finding her and shooting his shot. Their only issue is, they decided to steal a car from a known criminal, Trina, who sets out after them. What soon plays out is a cross country adventure filled with random encounters, unimaginable pranks, and improvised dialogue.
Anyone who is a fan of the prior mentioned content, will most likely enjoy Bad Trip.
Anyone who is a fan of the prior mentioned content, will most likely enjoy Bad Trip. It’s cut from the same cloth as Bad Grandpa in terms of plotting and shooting style, and the pranks/stunts are comparable to shows like Jackass or Impractical Jokers. The fun of the movie is seeing the real people react to the seemingly random events that occur around them and that sometimes end up directly involving them. Tiffany Haddish takes part in a sizeable portion of the random interactions with bystanders as Trina. She has a quirky ingenuity when it comes to going to up to people and just forcing them into conversation. She’s supremely confident when approaching strangers and has an aptitude of making them apart of the story even though they don’t realize it. Eric Andre has a knack for this as well. Most of the pranks involve him setting people up to see him “endure pain” or to experience extreme embarrassment. Much of the movie’s comedy is at his expense, but he appears to have no issue being the butt of the joke. Because after all, someone had to be.
Bad Trip is a project that made numerous people apart of the fun. Like in most movies or series, the most organic occurrences are the ones that end up making the cut. For all the inorganic parts of this movie, it’s the organic reactions that stem from that are the most amusing to watch. On the surface, it’s just a basic buddy movie. It’s the originality of how the production team went about putting it together that makes it disparate from others like it. Nothing about this movie will make anyone think, but laugh? That’s definitely at least almost guaranteed.
