The Couch Trip

Directed by Michael Ritchie, The Couch Trip follows a mental patient (Dan Aykroyd’s John Burns) as he bamboozles his way into temporarily replacing the host (Charles Grodin’s George Maitlin) of a popular radio show. It’s irreverent subject matter that’s employed to mostly entertaining (albeit quite hit-and-miss) effect by Ritchie, as the filmmaker, armed with a screenplay by Steven Kampmann, William Porter, Sean Stein, and Walter Bernstein, delivers a laugh-out-loud comedy that benefits substantially from the top-notch efforts of its eclectic cast members – with Aykroyd’s agreeable turn matched by such first-class periphery players as David Clennon, Mary Gross, and Richard Romanus. (Grodin’s often hilarious turn as the perpetually annoyed George does, of course, remain an ongoing highlight within the proceedings.) There’s little doubt, then, that The Couch Trip‘s inability to consistently sustain one’s interest and attention stems from its less-than-streamlined atmosphere, as the narrative boasts a handful of lackluster digressions (eg virtually everything involving Walter Matthau’s superfluous character) that cumulatively wreak havoc on the picture’s forward momentum – which, when coupled with a rather ineffective climax, ultimately cements the movie’s place as a decent-enough comedy that feels like it should be so much better.

**1/2 out of ****