Movies - Road Trip

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Road Trip

	Movies - Road Trip

Road Trip is a 2000 comedy film written by Todd Phillips and Scott Armstrong and directed by Todd Phillips. The film was based on life experiences by Todd Phillips and did quite well at the box office when it was released in 2000. A sequel was planned, but was later canned by Universal.

Tagline: The greatest college tradition of all.

Cast

Breckin Meyer
as Josh Parker
Seann William Scott
as E.L.
Amy Smart
as Beth Wagner
Fred Ward
as Earl Edwards
Paulo Costanzo
as Rubin Carver
DJ Qualls
as Kyle Edwards
Tom Green
as Barry Manilow
Rachel Blanchard
as Tiffany Henderson
Anthony Rapp
as Jacob
Andy Dick
as The Motel Clerk
Ethan Suplee
as Ed

Story summary

The film begins at the fictional University of Ithaca with Barry Manilow (Green) giving a tour around the campus to a crowd of disinterested individuals.

Eventually one of the tour members questions whether anything interesting happens at the university. Manilow begins to tell them about his friend, Josh Parker (Meyer), a university student who had been continuously faithful to his long-distance love Tiffany (Blanchard), who was studying at vet school in Austin, Texas. Simultaneously, he's also attracted to the lusty Beth (Smart), a fellow classmate who takes a liking to him. Cajoled into attending a party being held by his hedonistic friend, E.L. (Scott), Josh ends up buying Beth's company in a student auction to save her from a date with a teaching assistant, Jacob (Rapp), who is unhealthily infatuated with her. Their night together ends with videotaped sex.

Unfortunately, the sex tape is mistakenly mailed to Josh's girlfriend Tiffany. With E.L., brainy roommate Rubin (Costanzo), and unpopular, unsuspecting nerd Kyle (Qualls), Josh embarks on an urgent road trip to get the telltale tape before it reaches Tiffany's VCR.

Plot details

It's important to note the film takes place in two separate times; the tour and the timeframe of the Josh/Tiffany story Barry is retelling to his tour group. Most of the film, however, takes place in the Josh/Tiffany story timeframe.

Barry's tour

The film opens with Barry giving a tour to a group of prospective students and their parents. It is obvious Barry is making up most, if not all, of the information he is giving the tour members. For example, he claims the library he shows the group was built in the 1600s, when a date on the building clearly reads "1951." Barry's explanation of this discrepancy is that "1951" is the building's address.

Eventually one of the tour group's members becomes fed up with him and asks if anything interesting ever happens at the University of Ithaca. This prompts Barry to begin to tell the story of his friend Josh and his girlfriend Tiffany.

During this sequence, Barry says he has been attending the University of Ithaca for eight years.

Josh and Tiffany

Barry explains, over a series of flashback clips meant to look like home movies, how Josh and Tiffany have been friends since they were young. What began as a simple childhood friendship eventually became a romantic relationship. However, the two faced, as Barry puts it, their "most challenging challenge yet" when Josh enrolled at Ithaca University and Tiffany went off to the fictional University of Austin (which is often said to be based on the real-life University of Texas, which is also in Austin).

After this series of flashbacks, the story fades into a nightmare Josh is having about Tiffany cheating on him with a fellow student. Right after Tiffany and her new boyfriend begin kissing, Josh wakes up abruptly and calls Tiffany, leaving a message for her (according to the timeline established by the story, it is Thursday morning). He then films a videotapedmessage to her, something he has apparently done in the past. While filming this, Josh's friends Rubin and Barry enter and we learn Rubin has a pet snake named Mitch, which can only be fed once a week. It becomes clear Barry has a strange fascination with feeding the snake. At this point, Josh realizes he is late for class and, rushing out, he asks Rubin to mail the videotape to Tiffany.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Road Trip ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Road Trip; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.