The Trip Review: Netflix Crazy Action Comedy Directed By Tommy Wirkola With Noomi Rapace | I Onde Dager

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Aksel Hennie, Atle Antonsen

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Ratings: 3/5 (three star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

By now Netflix has entered an unstoppable production mechanism. Every week the platform is updated with new content and the variety of the catalog is incredible. There is no doubt that most of the new additions are not level products, but every now and then something good comes out. After all, when there are such high production rates, quality inevitably tends to decrease; or at least to be overshadowed by the amount of content that is made available at the same time. We would not really call it a quality product, but The Trip of which we offer you the review, is undoubtedly a pleasant surprise.

The film is a Norwegian production and tells the troubled relationship between a husband and a wife who decide to go on vacation to kill each other. The incipit is rather classic, but going forward with the vision, The Trip will surprise you in a crescendo of absurdity that we would not have expected. Between blood, violence and boorish but effective comedy, the film offers two hours of healthy entertainment. Directed by Tommy Wirkola, who previously directed Hansel and Gretel – Witch Hunters, he also stars Noomi Rapace (Bright) as a decidedly insane wife.

The Trip Review: Story Plot The Typical Life Of A Couple

Lars is a middle-aged man, a director and a husband, too bad he doesn’t seem to reflect himself in any of the three things. His work is unsatisfactory; it’s been too long now that he hasn’t gotten a decent job and got stuck in the TV production machine. Every day he spins shoddy stuff that he doesn’t care about and the situation certainly doesn’t improve when he gets home. Waiting for him is in fact Lisa, his shrewish and irritating wife. She also works in the world of cinema, as an actress, and she too is dissatisfied with her job. How Lars fails to get a prominent role and continues undeterred to do auditions with the inherent awareness that it will never be taken.

To increase her anxieties is her husband who does not encourage her in the least, quite the contrary. There is nothing but conflict between the two and even in moments of calm there is always a reason to spark controversy. Husband and wife thus come to the conclusion that there is only one solution left: murder. When Lisa invites Lars to spend a few days in the cabin in the mountains, alone, with some wine and no one to disturb them for miles, her husband devises a cunning plan to brutally murder his wife. What he is not aware of is that his partner has been thinking the exact same thing.

The Trip Review: Incredibly Sensible

As mentioned in the introduction of this review, The Trip has a rather classic but surprising incipit. After a slow and staggering start, the film opens revealing its true nature. With an “onion” structure, pass us the term, the film is a succession of revelations upon revelations that with the necessary flashbacks continually shuffle the cards on the table. Whenever a stalemate is reached, an external and unexpected element interrupts the scene and relaunches the tension. Abuse of this ploy could be redundant, but fortunately this is not the case. Each twist is placed at the right time and there is a great balance in dosing the number of revelations adequately. What is most surprising, and what it really shouldn’t even be, is the solidity of the writing.

Basically in operations of this kind everything is left to chance and between forcing and holes in the plot all that remains is ignorance of the show. Again, it doesn’t happen in this film. The script takes care to contextualize every twist, so that nothing appears rambling or forced. The protagonists are well characterized and despite an initial difficulty in empathizing with them, this limit is overcome once you reach the second half. Even the secondary characters seem to have a slight hint of characterization which, however, is, in fact, only hinted at. It would have been fun to know a little more about the film’s actual villains who are very interesting as spooky as they are, but apparently there was no room for more introspection.

The Trip Review: A Little Intellectual Film

We have repeated several times that The Trip has surprised us, and it is precisely because we did not expect such an escalation of violence and ferocity . The film starts quietly, the characters, their intentions and the journey to the mountains are introduced and you have the feeling of already knowing where the plot will go. But as we go on it all degenerates more and more between vulgarity, blood and comedy. The Trip’s crescendo is masterfully orchestrated and is a rapid ascent to a crackling finale. Tarantino is not to be expected, but the staging of the fights and the grotesque tone of the film make it extremely entertaining. The cultural level is not exactly high and perhaps it is also a good thing. Even from a directorial point of view, the result is not bad at all.

The Trip Review: The Last Words

All the action scenes are incredibly clear and understandable; the handling of the flashbacks and the intertwined structure of the film never creates confusion and even the photography and the sets stand out. The image is clean and brings out the colors that appear extremely sharp. The interiors of the house are well cared for and there is a certain symmetry in the setting up of the sets. This time Netflix hit the bull’s-eye. The Trip is a fun movie with funny characters and just the right amount of violence. After all, not all films have to be intellectually elevated and this is not at all. So if you want to relax and switch off your brain for a couple of hours, don’t miss it The Trip you will not regret it.

Positive sides

• Continuous revelations that keep the tension high
• Well built Climax that makes viewing more and more enjoyable

Negative sides

• The “villains” are underdeveloped