The Trip To Italy

We've been on a bit of a movie binge recently after not going to the cinema for several months.  Since late July we've seen Lucy, Get On Up, The Expendables 3 and today The Trip To Italy (for THC's actual trips to Italy you can see these posts).

The Trip to Italy stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon who play Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (and quite well indeed!) in a follow up to their 2012 film (originally a BBC series) The Trip which was set in the Lake District of England.  The set up is pretty simple.  Steve and Rob have been asked by a The Observer to write reviews of five Italian restaurants. They drive to a location, eat, talk and do a lot of impressions of actors including dueling Brandos, Hugh Grant, Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino (neither of them does a good Pacino) and Sean Connery (they do a great Connery).  There is a semblance of a plot also, but we'll let you discover it if you see the film.  Here's part of one of the best scenes in which they do Michael Caine, Christian Bale and Thomas Hardy from The Dark Knight Rises (it continues beyond the clip and gets even funnier). As an aside THC hasn't seen The Dark Knight Rises but he considers its predecessor  The Dark Knight the finest big Hollywood film of the past decade, a movie which raises complicated moral questions about how far you can and should go in combating evil and features an unforgettable and disturbing performance by Heath Ledger as The Joker.

The settings for The Trip To Italy are the countryside south of Turin, the Cinque Terre, Rome, Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and Capri so for us it was a joy to watch, particularly the last part featuring areas we've spent time in.

One section of the film is set in the town of Ravello and the Villa Cimbrone which we've been to three times and written about (see here and here) and we have now resolved to revisit next year.  The last shots in the trailer for the movie are at the Villa Cimbrone.

The Trip To Italy is a nice way to relax and enjoy yourselves but a word of warning.  We had not eaten before seeing the film and became ravenously hungry watching all the meals being served.