Waste of time

The greatest movie ever made..!

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Couch Trip, The (1988) ** (out of 4) Disappointing comedy about an escaped mental patient (Dan Aykroyd) who is mistaken for a real psychiatrist and he's asked to take over a radio station for a real doctor (Charles Grodin) who just happens to be having a nervous breakdown. The nut-case replacement becomes a hit with all of his listeners except for a homeless man (Walter Matthau) who knows the truth about him. Considering the cast you can't help but view THE COUCH TRIP as a major disappointment. I'm not sure of the history behind this film but it really does seem as if the three leads signed on to do the picture and then the script was written. Then the screenwriters, already knowing they had these comic geniuses signed on, decided to just come up with the weakest idea and try to pass it off as a story. The entire story is basically your typical mistaken identity thing but it just doesn't work in terms of laughs. You pretty much know a story is in trouble when the cast has to work so obviously hard to try and come up with some laughs. This can be seen as early as the first scene when a man is about to commit suicide and the Aykroyd character walks out onto the ledge to try and talk to him. Just watch how hard and over-the-top Aykroyd is having to act and it's because the material is so weak. All three of the actors give it their all but there's just nothing here for them to work with. Aykroyd goes over-the-top playing this madman but no laughs ever follow. Matthau plays crazy better than anyone else but it just makes you smile and never does it get a laugh. Grodin plays the same type of smug character that he's done throughout his career but it just doesn't work here. The entire film is just one bland joke after another and if it wasn't for the actors giving it their all then you would have hit the eject button after about thirty-minutes.

The Couch Trip bears all the hallmarks of a failed vehicle to inflate the principal actors' fame at the expense of long-term product saleability. Just watching it, you catch moments that would appear in a trailer - one-liners mostly - yet the overall plot is far-fetched and ridiculous. Some may say that the movie is supposed to reflect the insanity of its protagonist Becker (Dan Aykroyd), but I disagree. The acting is wooden more times than not and the plot's clunkiness is too noticeable to overlook.Aykroyd delivers his character and dialogue with Aykroydesque aplomb, but never really breaks through an invisible barrier of being... Dan Aykroyd playing an obviously Dan Aykroyd role. Matthau delivers perhaps one truly funny line (see the scene where he literally sucks all the jelly out of the donuts using straws: "If anybody wants a donut without the jelly, they're ready.") but the rest of the time he treads out a tired role in a way that clearly indicates how unhappy he was making this film. Grodin is just more of the same... a pent-up, angst-ridden bag of nervous energy on the verge of a complete mental collapse - a parody of his repertoire - and delivers a prosaic role.The humour is overtly physical, though much too inferior for successful slapstick. The scripting problems come down to the fact that it was written to the actors' needs rather than the audience's benefit. It accommodates them in all their clichéd glory. No scene illustrates this better than when Aykroyd is in a limousine with the TV on in the background. A semi-witty condom commercial starring Chevy Chase plays - an obvious reference to their on-screen partnership in Spies Like Us - and even here Chase succeeds in being a send-up of himself.Most of the Saturday Night Live crew were involved in many of memorable family of comedies in the 1980s, of which Aykroyd and Grodin are members. The Couch Trip comes across as a quickly thrown-together, industrially-produced, colour-by-numbers replica of National Lampoons, promising funny actors, never delivering.It's a lazy piece of film-making that was intended to give Aykroyd more air-time (forgive the unintentional word use) and barely makes use of Matthau except as a parody of himself.Truly unforgettable.

To say I wasn't expecting much sitting down to watch "The Couch Trip" is an understatement. I had no idea what it was about - I thought it was going to be a journey into the realm of sexuality when I heard Chevy Chase played a condom man and the movie's title involves the word "couch trip," *wink, wink.* Then I figured out that it had something to do with a mental institute and a patient escaping. My expectations dropped even lower.I was literally expecting a grin movie - the type where you grin once and walk out feeling a bit cheated. And in a way, this is cheap comedy - it doesn't have the greatest gags, the plot is ludicrous, but you know what? I had a big dumb smile on my face the entire time I was watching it.Dan Aykroyd plays John Burns, a patient at a mental hospital who may or may not actually be mental. He gives the psychiatrist, Lawrence Baird (David Clennon), plenty of grief and misery, which leads us to believe he is a sane person after all.Following a little bit of a riot in the mental institute's cafeteria, Burns is awaiting a tongue-lashing from Baird in his office when the phone rings. Burns picks it up, pretends to be Baird, and finds out the caller on the other line, Harvey Michaels (Richard Romanus), wants the real Dr. Baird to come fill in for a radio shrink named George Maitlin (Charles Grodin), who is taking a vacation with his wife, Vera (Mary Gross). Michaels wants Baird so bad he has even booked him a ticket on an airplane.Burns escapes the institute with the help of a receptionist, and drives to O'Hare. He gets Dr. Baird's ticket, gets on the plane, and eventually poses on the air as Dr. Baird. His show is a phenomenal success. "People love him!" one man says, and the other man replies, "It's because he actually cares about them."Donald Becker (the late, great Walter Matthau) is an ex-mental patient who recognizes Burns' clothes to be confinement-issued pants and shirts. To keep him quiet, Burns promises Becker a percentage of his income. The secret is kept closed.Meanwhile, Maitlin and his wife get in an argument. He flies home to end his vacation short and realizes that the man on his talk show is not, in fact, Dr. Baird after all, but no one believes him. He gets the real Dr. Baird, but unfortunately he has lost his ID so the police take them as nutcases and don't listen to their story.Let me name just a few of the plot holes I noticed while watching this film: Burns poses as Dr. Baird, but is never asked for his ID, even when claiming his plane ticket (he was robbed, he says, but they would still make sure he is Baird). If Burns becomes so very famous, how come the real Dr. Baird in Chicago never heard people talking about him? Word travels. And finally, why would the police ever arrest Maitlin and Baird (the real Baird, that is) without following up on their stories?To be frankly honest, I couldn't care less. I went into this movie with a closed mind and it surprised me - I really liked it. It entertained me. Its ideas are essentially ludicrous and not at all realistic, but Dan Aykroyd gives a truly spirited performance as a half-a-loon that makes "The Couch Trip" a trip worth taking. 3.5/5 stars -John Ulmer

As a fan of Dan Aykroyd, I watched this film when it was recently shown in the middle of night on TV. I wasn't expecting much, so it came as a big surprise that I loved it so much.This is the type of film that Dan Aykroyd seems to love to make. A chance for him to 'ham it up' and not take things too seriously. If you loved him in The Blues Brothers or Ghostbusters you'll know what I mean, and you'd be wise to check out The Couch Trip.Avid fans of Aykroyd will also have fun spotting all the tiny links to his other films in the script!I can't describe this film without spoiling it for you, so all I can do is tell you to check it out. I can't praise this film highly enough, and it must surely be time for a DVD release!!