Movies

The Trip to Greece: Engaging Movie

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon follow the path first traversed by Odysseus in The Trip To Greece.

Coogan and Brydon are engaging us in the witty banter and dueling celebrity impressions that have become the hallmark of this Michael Winterbottom-stewarded comedy series.

For this fourth and ostensibly final installment, the bickering couple (Coogan arrogant and condescending; Brydon cheery and patient) enjoy fine meals and show off their imitative vocal skills, here highlighted by Coogan doing a pitch-perfect Ray Winstone as King Henry VIII. In keeping with its predecessors, the duo’s latest colors its humor with a strain of wistful regret rooted in their thorny feelings about transitioning into middle age.

Anxiety about mortality turns out to be more pronounced than ever, particularly via Coogan’s Ingmar Bergman-esque dream sequence, which is related to dismay over his father’s failing health. Nonetheless, the alternately combative and chummy English pair remain in fine, funny form, and their swan song proves to be their most substantive collaboration since their maiden outing.