The Drop

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Michaël R. Roskam/Starring: Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini and Noomi Rapace

Based on a short story by Dennis Lehane, The Drop is a taut, gritty drama that sustains an atmosphere of anxiety and relentless dread. Director Michael R. Roskam keeps the story burning at a white-hot pitch while Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini and Noomi Rapace match the film's intensity with bravura performances.

Tom Hardy plays Bob Saginowski, who, with his cousin Marv (the late, great James Gandolfini), run a bar that operates as a drop-off for Chechen mobster's ill-gotten money. The bar's former owner was Marv himself; a once-respected and feared underworld figure whose subservient status as the Chechen's safety-deposit box causes not a little pique. Bob and Marv are no strangers to the dangerous and deadly world around them, but one can't help but feel unnerved as they do when the very menacing Chechens come to collect the drops.

After the drop money is robbed one night at the bar, we learn the heist was arranged by Marv himself as a prelude to a bigger score he has planned. When the Chechens learn the drop has been stolen, their terse demand that the money be found carries a tacit threat both Marv and Bob understand and respect.

While walking home one night, Bob hears a whimper coming from a trashcan resting in a residential yard. Looking inside, he finds a pit bull puppy who has been abused and abandoned. The act draws the attention of the woman who lives in the home, who comes rushing out to see Bob comforting the puppy. Bob reaches out to the woman named Nadia (Noomi Rapace) for help, which she reluctantly offers. Nadia balks when he offers her the dog but she agrees to watch him for a few days while Bob contemplates an alternative to keeping him. When Nadia loses her waitressing job, she asks Bob for a job caring for the dog when he's at work, which he agrees to. A romance slowly forms between Nadia and Bob as he begins to warm to the puppy.

But nothing in Bob's world is free-from-threats, for a shadowy, low-life named Eric Deeds (terrifically played by Matthias Schoenaerts, co-star of the acclaimed Rust and Bone) begins asking about the dog; even showing up at Bob's house to demand the puppy's return. Citing paperwork and a computer chip embedded under the dog's skin as proof of ownership, Bob naturally refuses. The dog's batter state is Bob's reasonable rationale for keeping the little canine. When Deeds asks that Bob pay him $10,000 for the dog, he also threatens to have the police intervene, and carrying the threat further, he mentions how he may "forget to feed the dog" once he regains ownership. In time, Bob learns that Deeds is Nadia's ex-boyfriend, which only intensifies an already overwrought situation.

A Chechen mobster breathing down Bob and Marv's necks, Eric Deeds' creepy stalking and a dog imperiled make for a nerve-racking narrative stew. Bob's imminent showdown with Deeds and Marv's hair-brained scheme to steal the sizeable Super Bowl drop dovetail in a climactic finale.

There is so much to like and admire about The Drop. All the performances are exceptional. Tom Hardy is an endlessly fascinating actor. Not only is his Brooklynese accent sound, but he never overplays his character. Bob's superhuman unflappability, seems imperturbable until late in the film. Gandolfini could play men like Marv blindfolded but he didn't cruise through the role. He finds the virtues and moral failings in Marv that make him both sympathetic and treacherous.
Rapace is a specialist in portraying intensity and wounded beauty. Being paired with Hardy seems very natural. Both can play characters whose violent emotions simmer just below the surface.

But it isn't only the principal cast who excels. Matthias Schoenaerts is a scary presence and like foreign actors Hardy and Rapace, handles his accent expertly without sacrificing performance. For the few scenes Michael Aronov appears as the Chechen mobster Chovka, he is difficult to forget and is absolutely frightening. Like Schoenaerts, he doesn't have to actually be violent to leave the audience feeling uneasy and thoroughly intimidated.

Roskam captures the grime of Brooklyn backstreets and a dark, seedy, warehouse district, which seem light-years removed from gentrified Manhattan often seen in the background.

The story isn't perfect but for a short-story adaptation stretched to feature-film length, it holds together well. The Drop isn't only an effective crime film but an ideal herald for the fall film season. It's also a reminder that James Gandolfini's passing was a tremendous loss to the world of cinema.

This is Where I Leave You

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Shawn Levy/Starring: Justin Bateman, Jane Fonda, Rose Byrne, Tina Fey, Kathryn Hahn, Adam Driver, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant and Corey Stoll

I wonder if Hollywood will ever tire of comedy/dramas centered around families gathering at a funerals. I've seen three such films this year: the awful August: Osage County, the awfuler Lullaby (which employs a dying father as motivation for a family to gather) and now This is Where I Leave You, which is not the awfulest of the tribe but pretty damn close. All the films use the done-to-death funeral plot contrivance as a way for characters to air out grievances, address past wrongs and renew old familial feuds.

Shawn Levy's film, based on a novel by Jonathan Tropper, employs all the familiar aforementioned narrative traits. And like other movies of this breed, it becomes unbearably monotonous...and fast. That Levy assembled such a talented cast for this nonsense is quite impressive but it becomes less so when it becomes clear they have nothing to say, though they say it compulsively. Whenever anyone feels the need to verbalize, which is frequently, they spew stagy dialogue where everyone has a pithy rejoinder to a smart-ass or self-consciously inappropriate comment.

The story centers on Justin Bateman's character Judd Altman; a producer of a popular shock-jock radio show whose star Wade Beaufort (Dax Shepard) is the Platonic ideal of jerkitude. When Judd arrives home early one day with a birthday cake for his wife, he finds Wade in bed with his wife. If that isn't enough of a cross to bear, he also receives a phone call from his sister Wendy (Tina Fey), informing him of their father's death.

As Judd's family gathers for the funeral, we meet each member and become acquainted with their quirks, personal issues and internecine, sibling strife.

Hilary Altman (Jane Fonda), the family matriarch, has just lost her husband and though bereaved, wears mourning attire that highlights her newly augmented breasts. This becomes joke-fodder for the family, which left me feeling queasy. I don't know if it's a cultural norm with those of the Jewish persuasion, but we hear the Altman family make many explicit comments about sex, particularly when it involves siblings or the mother. I'm no prude, but I would think most families would find sharing comments about their mother's breasts and their brother's masturbatory habits taboo subjects. As Judd and his mother lay out a basement bed for his stay, Hilary's breasts dangle from her bathrobe. After urging his mother to cover up, she gently chides him for finding the sight of her breasts objectionable.

Judd's family and extended family arrive at Hilary's home with their respective life-baggage. Wendy's husband is emotionally unavailable and overly devoted to his career, brother Phillip (Adam Driver) is unemployed, unemployable and in therapy, and another brother Paul (Corey Stoll) is having trouble impregnating his wife while also struggling to maintain control of the family sporting goods business, of which the siblings all share part-ownership.

Phillip also has his therapist/girlfriend in tow; Tracy (Connie Britton), an older woman whose attraction to the younger man conflicts with her misgivings about his immaturity and penchant for seeing other women.

What one is wont to find in films of this variety are former classmates, crushes or friends the characters encounter. Judd runs into Penny (Rose Byrne), a former schoolmate for whom he develops a romantic interest. His volatile relationship with his wife of course complicates the attraction.
Wendy also has her romantic furnace stoked by family friend and sporting goods employee Horry Callen (Timothy Olyphant). Horry is afflicted with a mild mental impairment which stems from a head injury he received while in Wendy's company during an accident in the past. Like Judd's affection for Penny, Wendy's attraction to Horry fills an emotional void in her marriage and represents some unfinished, romantic business. Upon the first meetings between Judd and Penny and Wendy and Horry, we know intuitively--as if it were written in sky--where these sub-plot developments will lead.

It seems impossible to square Phillip's ability to charm women with his personality. How any woman could find such an a-hole supernova like Phillip attractive sorely tests our ability to suspend disbelief. Adam Driver seems to have no difficulty playing such obnoxious lunkheads, for only recently he played another in What If. I sincerely hope he strays from this pigeon-holing in the future otherwise he may not be able to play anything else convincingly.

It seems Jane Fonda can only appear in a film (these days, anyway) to show us how great she looks. Of course she can hardly be blamed for her character limitations when Hollywood has no idea how woman older than 40 behave and think. And they don't want to know. It is mind-blowing to consider Fonda is now 77 though her figure is that of someone less than half her age. If only someone could and would write her a character with some depth and dimension to challenge her beauty.

As the family occupies Hilary's house, animosities arise and secrets are unearthed. Most character's secrets seem to be revealed like clockwork; every 15 minutes or so, which are followed by blather like "why didn't you tell us/me?," and glib jokes and comments. When Hilary divulges her big secret near the end, it comes off more as a plot accessory rather than something plausibly organic. And what is typical of this genre is behavior that screams "though we're dysfunctional, aren't we so quirky and lovable?"

I saw the film with a capacity crowd, one that laughed uproariously at what I found to be somewhat clever but unfunny jokes or gags. Some aren't so clever. Paul's son's potty-training tendencies, which involve his hauling his potty around, are played for laughs but are just painfully cutesy.

A crowd's reaction is never a reliable gauge of a film's comedic or dramatic value. Though it is fun to watch a film with a large audience, collective laughter or applause can distort one's perception of the film. Over the din of laughter, I somehow managed to see through the formulae and the stock characterizations. I'm sure critics and other filmgoers will too.

I really wished I could have told the characters to shut up for five minutes. The noise generated by the family's incessant chatter made my head hurt. When smart-alecky jokes and jibes weren't being sprayed like buckshot, dime-store platitudes made reliable surrogates.

I may have to avoid films like This is Where I Leave You forever hereafter. But given my inability to ever learn a lesson, I could very well grouse next time too.

Art and Craft

Directors: Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker

If an unethical act doesn't qualify as a crime though said act causes a certain measure of harm to others, then to what extent can a person be deemed "guilty?" Directors Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker think the question worthy of reflection in their fascinating documentary Art and Craft. But though the question is of paramount importance, it remains a peripheral concern because the real subject of the film is the strange but extraordinary art forger Mark Landis. The film could better be categorized as a portrait (no pun intended) of a man who feels little remorse and no sense of criminality for his forgeries--at least as much as we can discern from observed behavior.

Landis is an excellent subject for a documentary; his motivations for what he does are legion but also opaque. As a diagnosed schizophrenic (among other trace psychological conditions), it is safe to say Landis' view of what he does is partly shaped by his mental illness. While there are many who dupe dealers and collectors with bogus art for profit, Landis may be the only forger who donates his forgeries philanthropically. After copying classics with extraordinary precision and care with art materials found at the local Hobby Lobby, Landis then presents his works to museums around the U.S. It is astonishing to see the list of reputable art museums who have benefitted from his "largess."

We learn much about his life, particularly his relationship with his mother. Her passing was a loss from which Landis has yet to recover. We also learn about the origins of his craft, which arose when the young Landis was left alone in hotel rooms with art books and drawing materials while his parents attended parties.

It would be foolhardy to attribute Landis' gifts to pure philanthropic zeal. He shares a story about a streak of mischief in his youth; of which his mother was well aware. As we see him visit museums, sometimes in disguise; we can assume his delight in making more mischief has hardly ebbed.

Though many museums were duped into accepting his forgeries, a former FBI agent refuses to categorize Landis' donations as a crime. Because he asks for no monetary remuneration for his work, he is cleared from any criminal wrongdoing.

Of course many of those deceived don't share the agent's perspective. One victim, a former registrar for a Cincinnati museum named Matthew Leininger, spends his his post-museum life obsessively tracking Landis' forgeries. The film presents Landis and Leininger as mouse and cat. It is almost inevitable that the two adversaries will meet and they do at a university exhibition of the forger's work. It is interesting to note that Leininger has his own mental issue--OCD--which creates a kind of psychological bond between the hunter and hunted one might normally find in a noir thriller.

Cullman, Grausman and Becker can be commended for finding a documentary subject no screenwriter could dream up. As much as we learn about Landis, we're left with a universe of puzzles to sort out, many of which the filmmakers wisely leave unaddressed and unsolved. Landis' motivations are also left for audience conjecture--an approach that makes for an engaging docu-mystery.

Though attendees at the university exhibition--Leininger among them--exhort Landis to pursue his own art, we don't believe for a moment he will do anything of the sort. The final shot in the film may corroborate that claim. Of course it's also possible the film will grant Landis a modicum of fame (or infamy), thus denying him further opportunities for deception. We shall see.

The Last of Robin Hood

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland/Starring: Kevin Kline, Dakota Fanning and Susan Sarandon

The Last of Robin Hood tells the true story of screen legend Errol Flynn's relationship with the underage Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning); an elicit affair abetted in part by Aadland's mother Florence (Susan Sarandon).

Kevin Kline is splendidly cast as the aging Errol Flynn whose best Hollywood years are behind him; a truth he sadly acknowledges in the film. Kline bears an uncanny resemblance to Flynn with his roguish mustache, which makes him physically ideal for the role.

Beverly is a young actress/dancer with show biz ambitions and when the film begins, she is seen walking on a movie lot to attend a rehearsal for a dance routine. Unbeknownst to Beverly, she is being watched by none other than Flynn himself from an office window across the street. Enchanted and fascinated by the young beauty, he follows her, then seeks her out inside the studio. Flynn introduces himself to Beverly, who is naturally taken with the star.

In a classic movie industry seduction, Flynn offers to become her mentor, which the young woman eagerly accepts. He asks her to audition a short time thereafter, which thrills her mother, who is besotted with fame and stardom.

On the car ride home from said audition, Flynn seizes an opportunity to kiss Beverly. Rather than responding with disgust, Beverly reciprocates.

While Florence shows only a trace of suspicion when her daughter arrives home late, Beverly's father Herb (Patrick St. Esprit) remains wary of Flynn. When Herb learns Flynn has invited both women to New York, he first threatens to leave the family then acts on said threat shortly after. After the women spend some time with Flynn in New York, he comes clean about his love for Beverly, which at first incurs Florence's ire but her intoxication with fame and the film star's Hollywood stature stays her moral indignation.

As Flynn's career further declines, so does his health. And what Beverly and her mother had hoped would be a career boost becomes a series of very unprestigious movie roles. Her modest acting ability does nothing to help. Flynn directs her in a pro-Cuban revolution B-film set on location and tries to sell Stanley Kubrick on the idea of a Flynn/Aadland pairing for his film Lolita. Though Kubrick seems intrigued with the idea of casting Flynn (Flynn as Humbert Humbert--that would have been something!), he finds Beverly's screen-test less than impressive.

While her daughter's romance with Flynn rages, Florence drinks heavily and tells anyone who will listen about her friendship with Errol Flynn.

It's too bad the cast had such a serviceable script. Kline is terrific but apart from his amoral behaviour, he could be any playboy flaunting his taste for young girls. Dakota Fanning's role is the least tended to. Aside from a few moments that suggest Beverly has smarts and some wit, she is mostly a blank. Only Sarandon's character has any dimension, which she fleshes out with a skilled performance. Much of the dialogue and scenes lay flat which makes the movie seem more like a made-for-cable-T.V. production rather than something cinematic.

The film is tastefully chaste but it also never dips its toes into anything dark. Flynn confesses to being an SOB but it would have helped to demonstrate it more. Yes, it is enough that he was in a relationship with an underage girl--Beverly was 15 when they became a thing--but he seems too charming to be anything more than a drunken cad.

The film left an aftertaste like that of flat soda. It had some flavor but all the fizz and pop was sadly lacking. It also suffered from an unimaginative title.

Sometimes the worst response to a film is to have no response. Apathy is in many ways worse than contempt. This isn't a film that one will hate, merely one that might elicit a yawn and a stretch. I wish I could say more but what's the point?

Innocence

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Hilary Brougher/Starring: Sophie Curtis, Kelly Reilly, Graham Phillips and Linus Roache

Innocence is the greatest contribution to cinema in the last 75 years...

No, I'm kidding. If it were only that.

What it really is is a ridiculous time-waster made more so by a knee-slapper of a plot and a comatose performance by Sophie Curtis that wouldn't register as a blip on the most sensitive electrocardiograph. I thought she might be auditioning for a role as a doorframe but that requires acting skills beyond Curtis' range. I wish I could call what she appeared to be doing onscreen bad acting but it's something more akin to an episode of narcolepsy, though instead of falling asleep in the middle of sentences, she snoozes at the beginning and end of them too. Her character stays conscious long enough to attract a boy in school, but what he finds appealing about her mystifies me, for she radiates less heat than that of the refrigerator compartment that holds butter.

Curtis plays Beckett Warner, a teenage girl who loses her mother in a surfing accident during her family's beach holiday. Though an aneurysm is mentioned later as the cause, one could just as easily believe the mother willfully entered a shark's gullet to escape her hopelessly vacuous daughter.

Her grieving father, Miles (Linus Roache) moves the family to New York City, where he enrolls Beckett at Hamilton Prep, which seems very ordinary save for the all-female staff. The women, all sexy and youthful, gather regularly for a book group though they don't invite Beckett's father, who is a writer of some renown though it's never clear what it is he actually writes. The fact that he is a writer seems strange, given his terrible skills at Scrabble later in the film. Maybe we're meant to believe he writes pop-up books.

While Beckett contends with the loss of her mother, a fellow student commits suicide by leaping to her death from the school roof. Her body nearly crushes Beckett's as it smashes on the pavement. Concerned for her mental health, Beckett is taken into the care of the school nurse, Pamela Hamilton (Kelly Reilly, in a silly role); who also happens to be a descendant of the school's founder. Beckett also attends therapy sessions with the school shrink, Dr. Vera Kent (Sarita Choudhury). Pamela takes a special shine to Beckett and eventually becomes her father's lover.

Beckett befriends a classmate Jen Dunham (Sarah Sutherland), whose mother is a raging alcoholic and also a member of the book group. Beckett also strikes up a romance with one of the Hamilton boys, Tobey Crawford (Graham Phillips) whose mother is--you guessed it--a member of the mysterious book klatch.

Before long, Beckett discovers the book group is actually a witch's coven; one intent on sacrificing virgins like Beckett and her friend Jen for reasons I assume deal with prolonging their lives and preserving their beauty. I only hope they offered the girls free tuition; school costs are a killer these days.

Director Hilary Brougher fails to establish or generate a moment of fear or suspense. It doesn't help that her leading lady lacks the skill to emote convincingly during the few scenes she is actually required to do so. Kelly Reilly, who redeemed herself in the recently-released Calvary after an embarrassing turn in this year's Heaven is For Real (see my posting for that film in the April archive), is cursed again with a risible character. Doesn't it strike anyone as peculiar that a scion of the school's founder is relegated to the role of a nurse?

I should have brought a flashlight to the film because so many interior scenes--even in daylight--are shot in a dark, bluish-gray that don't establish a mood of mystery so much as stimulate speculation as to why the school hasn't paid its electric bill. As perplexing are the repeated shots of the night sky with full moons. A little Astronomy 101 might have educated the filmmakers about the unlikeliness, if not the improbability, of the appearance of so many full moons. I might have not noticed such niggling details if I had been absorbed in the story.

I really didn't care about Beckett or the ludicrous coven. Everything about the movie loudly proclaimed its own boneheadedness. Instead of sacrificing virgins, the coven might have been better off using their witchy magic to treat Beckett's Severe Personality Deficiency...or Sophie Curtis' underwhelming acting.

Where are you when we need you, Samantha Stephens?

As Above, So Below

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: John Erick Dowdle/Starring: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge and Francois Civil

John Erick Dowdle, Director of Devil, revisits the realm of the supernatural with As Above, So Below; a technically accomplished, better than average film with imaginative sets and camera work. Though horror is the most durable of all movie genres, it consistently leaves one with low expectations. And even though the film's trailer promised more than your garden variety horror film in terms of offbeat story and locations, it also featured many elements that left me sighing.

Perdita Weeks plays Scarlet Marlowe, Doctor of Archaeology and Symbiology though her youth leaves one wondering how she had time to collect multiple Ph.Ds'. But no matter, I wouldn't let my enjoyment of the movie become slavishly shackled to the demands of realism.

We first see her being interviewed for a documentary. The documentarian, Benji (Edwin Hodge), follows her around during the film to give us another shaky, hand-held, first-person perspective of the action--a stylistic tic that's all the rage in horror these days. Early in the film, she discusses her quest to find the mythical Philosopher's Stone; an object sought by alchemists for centuries. The Stone is thought to be key in transmuting base metals to gold and bestowing eternal life on those who possess it.

We then see Scarlet disguised in an Arab woman's headdress as she makes her way by bus to a rural Iranian village. A frantic Iranian man leads her to a hole in the wall of his home, which she enters--in spite of his protestations--to a another tunnel which brings her face to face with ancient writings. She breaks through a wall to find a black statue of a bull, whose flanks are covered with more ancient writings, which she copies feverishly. Like Indiana Jones, Dr. Marlowe--which noone ever addresses her as in the film in spite of her impressive academic credentials--seems to have little professional regard for the integrity of archaeological sites, as one will see often during the film.

After her escape from Iran, we see her again in Paris as she seeks out a former boyfriend named George (Ben Feldman), who has the ability to translate the Aramaic writings found in the Iranian cave. She explains, as Benji films, that Ben likes to break into places of archaeological interest to restore damaged or non-working mechanical objects. When she first approaches him, George is busy restoring a centuries-old chime in a church tower. That both Scarlet and George think nothing of breaking the law to achieve their respective goals again says very little about their professional ethics.

George shows little patience for Scarlet's quest but assists her in translating the Aramaic writings which reveal the location of the Philospher's Stone that supposedly rests under the Parisian catacombs. After some Da Vinci Code/Indiana Jones-like clue decipherings, the two search for a young frenchman named Papillon (No, I'm not making his name up and no, he doesn't resemble Steve McQueen); played by Francois Civil, whose singular skill in finding the hidden passages of the catacombs makes him a logical choice to join Scarlet and George in their descent deep beneath Paris.

In spite of some implausibilities, the plot's potential is clearly laid out.

To sustain the first-person camera POV, Scarlet provides each member of the expedition mini-cameras to attach to their helmets. This frees Benji from being the lone perspective--a handy solution to problems filming in dark spaces with limited lighting. This is also a clever ploy to create more tension and drama.

The descent into the catacombs is not for the claustrophobic. A scene of Benji squeezing through a hole will make even the most unclaustrophobic squirm. I'm not sure how Dowdle filmed the scenes in the tunnels and catacombs, because they look authentic and really great--a nice technical achievement for which his cinematographer Leo Hinstin can share credit.

As the group descends deeper into the catacombs, Scarlet and George decipher more clues. And while the group makes their way into the darkness, eery, creepy sounds begin to unnerve them. A horror film's use of sound can be as effective as visuals in creating dread and terror, which Dowdle employs with consummate skill.

Along the way, encounters with nightmarish wraiths, apparitions and ghouls occur with some frequency.

Everything proceeds entertainingly. I think Dowdle could have exploited the setting for more scares. And things that menace in the dark never really threaten, which saps the film of chill potential. We see a hooded something wandering around down below but we have not a clue what it is and why it mostly ignores the group, which is disappointing.

Scarlet translates an inscription above a cave opening as "Abandon all hope ye who enter here,"-- which is of course what marks the entrance to Hell in Dante's Inferno. It's a fun touch but I hoped I might see something as deliciously nether-worldish as what gushes forth from Dante's epic poem. Creepy things do abound but nothing to suggest that of the Dark Lord.

The film suggests a figurative Hell where guilt forges manacles one cannot extricate oneself from in life. The characters address their psychological troubles near the end and speedily dispost of them in an unsatisfying manner. Dowdle's script never established any of the character's psychic baggage early on, so it's a little strange for it to arise out of nowhere.

I mostly enjoyed the movie until the screenplay called for Scarlet to do something I found unforgivably preposterous. Luckily said nonsense occurs late in the film. In the end, I hoped for a darker, O. Henry-like twist but the film stubborly settles for something more banal.

As Above, So Below didn't provide me an opportunity for shredding and evisceration. It was too ambitious to deride but not enough to praise equivocally. If the quality of the writing matched the production and sound design, Dowdle's film would have been something memorable but he should be commended for his originality and for loftier ambitions seldom seen in the horror genre.

As horror films tend to steal shamelessly from one another, As Above, So Below has the decency to make its own statement on its own terms. Unfortunately, the film will fade from theaters and skulk around on DVD, which will greatly diminish its visual strengths. Dowdle is a talented director; one who thinks outside the holding cell of genre cliches. I hope the film industry doesn't beat that out of him.

The Trip to Italy

Director: Michael Winterbottom/Starring: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon

I guess we can categorize The Trip to Italy as a sequel to Michael Winterbottom's The Trip though that seems to Hollywoodize something that is anything but a Tinseltown construct. Maybe follow-up is more apt. One could also call it a cinematic roman a clef, as the actors play themselves in situations with people who are anything but themselves. Whatever the designation, what we have are actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon returning for another road trip, this time in the stunningly beautiful Italian peninsula.

If one is familiar with the first film, one expects a kind of zany travelogue with the following indispensable characteristics: offbeat, amusing, and sometimes witty banter, beautiful scenery, visits to literary shrines or places of interest dealing with Romantic Poets, comments--often tongue-in-cheek--about said poets and of course food that triggers Pavolian salivations in the viewer.

If you found the two actors stimulating company in the first film, you may so again though some elements that made the former fun come dangerously close to being tiresome the second time around. However one feels about Coogan and Brydon as travel companions--which I'm sure would vary from viewer to viewer--would be made irrelevent by two of the film's solid attributes: delectible food and the Italian coast's seductive allure.

The film wastes little time immersing one in the story, as the film opens with Brydon and Coogan driving through rural, Northern Italy. Brydon has accepted another writing assignment for a London daily, which again is to be a melding of sights and exceptional dining.

We see them in a convertible Mini-Cooper--an ideal vehicle for touring Italy and a kind of third cast member--and as one might expect, we hear dueling impersonations of Michael Caine; a nod to the first film. Though I find Coogan and Brydon's Michael Caine impersonations to be nearly indistinguishable from the genuine article, I was hoping for something new. They still manage to make them funny, particularly in a scene when the two trade comments on Caine's role in Batman. Brydon does an uproariously funny impersonation of Caine's near-sobbing voice when he says "Master Wayne."

As the two actors make their way from Northern Italy to Rome, the two continue their repartee while stopping to see landmarks devoted to Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The two sometimes recite poetry and comment on the more salacious details of the poets' lives.

Winterbottom doesn't devote sustained screen-time to restaurant food preparation; we mostly see the amazing, culinary creations when plates are set before Coogan and Brydon. Though we don't always know exactly what is being served, our sense of taste is stimulated just the same.

During quieter moments in their respective hotel rooms, we hear the two men talking to loved ones on the phone, which reveal unhappy home lives. This serves as a sobering contrast to the merriment and gustatory pleasures the men enjoy, which create a kind of happy oblivion travellers often experience when removed from the routines of daily life.

As the actors make their way down along the Amalfi Coast and on to the ruins of Pompeii and to Naples itself, we see more wonderful cuisine, learn more about Byron and Shelley and hear more impersonations, which at this point, begin to grate. Brydon, though a talented mimic, always seems to be "on." It's difficult to discern his real voice from those he impersonates because Sean Connery, Al Pacino and Michael Caine (among others) always seem to be pouring out of his mouth. Though he has his funny moments, I don't know that I could stomach a long road trip--even one with incomparable vistas, with someone who seems compulsively entertaining. I don't know if Brydon is like his "character" in The Trip to Italy but I hope he isn't. Coogan is more thrifty with his impersonations. He devotes equal time to making witty comments and observations. And like the first film, he sometimes finds Brydon to be a bit much at times, particularly in a scene where the two men are looking over the petrified, ashen remains of a Pompeiian man who died in the Vesuvius eruption. Brydon imagines a dialogue with the corpse, which is amusing at first then plays too long, becoming wearisome. By the latter part of the film, one also begins to dread Al Pacino and Woody Allen impersonations, which never seem to let up.

A lovely long shot of Vesuvius and the Neapolitan coastline serves as a striking backdrop to the ferry-ride Brydon, Coogan and his newly-arrived family members enjoy on their way to the island of Capri.

The two were initially bound for Sicily but familial committments cut their trip short.

What's not to like about Winterbottom's film? Who wouldn't enjoy amazing cuisine, gorgeous scenery, some literary history, amusing company and a chance to tour Italy's otherworldly beautiful western coast? The sensation of being along for the ride; sharing a lunch or dinner table with Coogan and Brydon and being at their side in their touristy perambulations makes for an entertaining romp. I felt an overwhelming urge afterward to catch a flight to Italy; the allure is that powerful. We can mostly credit that reaction to Winterbottom and his cinematographer James Clarke, though Coogan and Brydon deserve some of the kill too.

Is there another trip in the cards? Could the south of France or Greece be next? Can we stand more of Brydon's pathological compulsion to impersonate every actor in the civilized world? I guess we'll have to wait and see.