It started a decade ago with THE TRIP, a culinary tootle around England featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing facsimiles of themselves.
Two subsequent films had them do the same shtick through Italy and Spain.
Now a fourth adventure beckons, THE TRIP TO GREECE, a sort of retracing of the Odyssey, with flashes of the Homer erotic.
Again directed by Michael Winterbottom, THE TRIP TO GREECE has the distinction of dovetailing into the film GREED, which Winterbottom directed and Coogan starred in just previous to this project.
That film was shot in Greece and concerned a megalomaniac millionaire(played by Coogan) throwing a themed milestone birthday and coming into contact with refugees. One of the refugees is Karem, who is still living in a Greek refugee camp when the blokes bump into him early on in their trip. Coogan appears uncomfortable and unsettled at the meeting, perhaps because of the overwhelming helplessness felt at the haplessness of Karem and his cohort’s plight, or perhaps because of the guilt that he and his companion has free passage in the world, especially here in the cradle of civilisation.
It’s a life imitating art, art imitating life moment that makes up the fabric of these road trip movies, and audiences are left to ponder what is real, what is fabricated.
What is real, though, is the breathtaking beauty of that part of the world. THE TRIP TO GREECE starts in Turkey, which means they start talking turkey long before they hit Greece. And then it’s the islands and the beckoning sea.
And, it’s still funny, as the leads continue on their comfortable banter and bicker, a 21st Century Hope and Crosby with contemplation of classical culture interleaved with nods to popular culture via impersonations of actors
Doesn’t matter whether you know the difference between a calamari and a kalamata, it will be all Greek to you when you embark on this bittersweet odyssey with a pair of alternately annoying and amusing bon vivants.
In a world of reduced travel and lock downs, Greece is the word.
THE TRIP TO GREECE is Available from: iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, Sony Playstation, Telstra & Fetch TV
DVD out on June 3rd
