To be completely honest, I knew next to nothing about this film, let alone the two previous film’s in this comedy series.
Director Michael Winterbottom has created a surely delightful film in this entry, the continuing journey of actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing alternative versions of themselves. Engaging with everything from a long journey of discovery to bottles of fine wine to copious amounts of delicious food.
In this entry, we find both Coogan and Brydon roaming through the scenic beauty of Spain captured brilliantly by the film’s cinematographer James Clark, a work of art I feel may even be Oscar worthy.
Brydon and Coogan find themsleves at ease with one another in a subtle and thoroughly entertaining helm through their performances making silly yet intellectual passes continually back to back towards one another everything from Marlon Brando impressions to tentative Nazi jokes.
The Trip To Spain is a well crafted film with a very relaxed and real atmosphere and sharp tone, that reaches out in full measure. This is in due part to Brydon and Coogan’s natural antics as they play themselves off of each other. I didn’t get the sense that their sparring was ad libbed.
Though there are times when the jokes become dull and certain scenes drag on and become rather flat. The minor flaws aren’t enough of a distraction to grasp the good fun that is this film. Without a doubt one of my favorite films of this year. I plan to revisit the first two films in this trilogy soon.