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Tripping Forward (2009)

DVD Cover (Celebrity Video Distribution)
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Overall Rating 43%
Overall Rating
Ranked #12,310
...out of 20,203 movies
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Ford Coleman is a struggling actor in Hollywood who fears never achieving fame other then appearing in local TV commercials. After over a year living in L.A., Ford is broke and in danger of being evicted from his apartment. His slacker roommate Tripp, who has given up his music career out of hopelessness, convinces Tripp to become a drug dealer to buy and sell cocaine to supermodels as their extra income, which brings both Ford and Tripp into danger as they venture into the Los Angeles underworld which also puts a risk on Ford's budding romance with Gwen, a struggling actress herself unaware of Ford's secret arrangement with Tripp. --TMDb
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Review by Ginose
Added: March 6, 2010
I can't say that there are a lot of buddy drug-comedies that I've found terribly endearing over the years. There's classics like "Pineapple Express" and "Half-Baked" that are always work laugh after laugh, no matter how many times I sit through them, but even those classics go through the same motions as just about any of them: Friends need cash. Friends get into drugs. Friends get in over their heads. Antics ensue.

This is a favorable and simple plot for a good comedy, but there's only so many ways it can be worked and still release an elaborate, enjoyable comedy, and, trust me, just about all of the best ones have been used already. Not to say the set pieces CAN'T be worked into a new, relevant and interesting film, but I'm saying that the amount of heart, effort and originality it would take to DO something like that would be difficult to find, indeed.

Does "Tripping Forward" manage this incredible feat, crating a new classic that the genre will have to set a new standard towards? Well... that's not really the point of a buddy drug-comedy, is it?

Ford is an aspiring actor who is best known for an amusing commercial with a hilarious little-girl, and absolutely nothing else. His agent works all kinds of wonders for him, but he just can't seem to make a break anywhere. After being urged on by his substance abusing roommate/friend as well as the fancy little eviction notice he just received from his landlady, Ford decides to take up the opportunity to sell some blow at a ridiculously fine profit. Well, this actually goes alright and, after a failed part-time job and meeting a wonderful woman/classmate, the hard, flat truth of dealing in Hollywood finally hits the two. Very, very hard.

**SPOILERS I GUESS**
The first thing I can tell you is that the plot-synopsis I just gave you covers a large bulk of the film in light-detail, this is because of the massive amount of shit that seems to happen in it's 90-minute running time. A whole LOT of strange, crazy and, occasionally, hysterical bullshit, most of it almost completely unrelated to the plot, happens throughout the run time, and I'm not sure where it all stands with me.

The "prep-time" for Ford's audition in a new Nic Cage film is funny, but almost completely pointless in the grand-scheme of it all. The first deal, the strange turn of scenes afterward and the second "deal" are relevant, but not terribly funny. Why the less relevant scenes are caked into the beginning rather than the middle of the movie is beyond me, but I can't imagine them fitting in very well almost anywhere in the film.
**THE SPOILERS ARE DONE NOW**

That spoiler excluded, though, "Tripping Forward" doesn't really stumble as a comedy in any way, shape or form, but it's not a stand-out unique one. That's a crippling blow to most comedies nowadays, I suppose, especially with those wonderful Apatow Company bastards taking all the good low-budget fodder and making huge, critically renowned films out of them, I'd imagine it gets very hard for the classic indie-comedy these days.

None of this keeps the film from trying, especially with its powerful lead performances, hilarious dialogue and ingenious simplicity, but I can't say it's anything too new on any fronts. It's more of the status quo that we've all become so used to in this day and age. Is the status quo bad? Not at all (well, not NORMALLY), and I welcome a good film that is just as good as any other good film of its genre, and I rarely look for anything too unique in the world today, but "Tripping Forward" at least broke its budget-boundaries with remarkable speed, certainly better than the mainstream schlock that saturates the genre these days.

It's a fun film, it's a good film, and it's a very well-made film. Not too much originality to look for in it, but not to much to find anywhere else these days, either. I'd happily advise "Tripping Forward" to fans of the genre or anyone looking for a good laugh at the expense of drug-dealing, models and Hollywood. It's like a party in a DVD.

8/10.
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