EuroTrip

EuroTrip
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jeff Schaffer Uncredited: Alec Berg David Mandel
Produced by	Alec Berg David Mandel Daniel Goldberg Jackie Marcus Joe Medjuck
Written by	Jeff Schaffer Alec Berg David Mandel
Starring	Scott Mechlowicz Jacob Pitts Michelle Trachtenberg Travis Wester Jessica Boehrs
Music by	James L. Venable
Cinematography	David Eggby
Edited by	Roger Bondelli
Production company	The Montecito Picture Company
Distributed by	DreamWorks Pictures
Release dates	February 20, 2004 (2004-02-20)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States Czech Republic
Language	English French Dutch Slovak German Italian
Budget	$25 million[1]
Box office	$20,796,847[1]

EuroTrip is a 2004 American-European teen comedy adventure film written by Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer, and directed by Schaffer. The film stars Scott Mechlowicz, Jacob Pitts, Michelle Trachtenberg, Travis Wester, and Jessica Boehrs. The film follows an American teenager, Scott "Scotty" Thomas (portrayed by Mechlowicz), who travels across Europe in search of his German pen pal, Mieke (portrayed by Boehrs). Scott's quest takes him to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Bratislava, Berlin, and Rome, encountering awkward and embarrassing situations along the way. The film received a 2004 Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice Movie Your Parents Didn't Want You to See.

Plot

The film begins in Hudson, Ohio, where Scott "Scotty" Thomas (Scott Mechlowicz) gets dumped by his girlfriend, Fiona (Kristin Kreuk), immediately after his high school graduation in 2004. With his best friend, Cooper Harris (Jacob Pitts), Scott attends a graduation party that evening and listens to a performance of the film's main theme song "Scotty Doesn't Know", that crudely details the affair Fiona was having with the band's singer, Donny (Matt Damon), while she was with Scott. Drunk and angry, Scott returns home and receives an e-mail reply from his German pen pal, Mieke (Jessica Boehrs), who expresses sympathy towards Scott after Fiona breaks up with him, and suggests they arrange to meet in person. However, the entire time Scott has known her he has mispronounced Mieke as "Mike", thinking that she is male. After Cooper suggests that "Mike" may be a sexual predator, Scott angrily tells Mieke to stay away from him. Scott's younger brother, Bert (Nial Iskhakov), informs him that "Mieke" is a common girl's name among Germans. Realizing his mistake, and that he has feelings for Mieke, Scott tries desperately to contact her again, only to find out that Mieke has blocked his email address. Encouraged by Cooper and with him in tow, Scott decides to travel to Europe, seek out Mieke, and apologize to her face-to-face.

Scott and Cooper first travel as couriers to London, where they end up befriending the members of a Manchester United football hooligan firm, led by Mad Maynard (Vinnie Jones). After a wild night of drinking, Scott and Cooper wake up on a AEC Routemaster double-decker bus on their way to Paris for a Manchester United game. Once in Paris, they meet up with fraternal twins and fellow high school classmates, Jenny and Jamie (Michelle Trachtenberg and Travis Wester), who are also touring Europe together. Jenny and Jamie decide to accompany Scott and Cooper to find Mieke in Berlin and along the way plan to visit other parts of Europe together, since this will be the last summer the four of them will spend as a group before going off to college. The group travel by train to Amsterdam, where Jamie is robbed while engaging in oral sex with a beautiful camera salesgirl. As Jamie had everyone's money, passports, and train tickets with him, they have no choice but to hitchhike to Berlin. Scott asks a German truck driver to take them to Berlin to find Mieke. Scott's German is poor and even though the driver mentions Berlin in his reply numerous times, the foursome fail to realize that he is trying to tell them that he is going nowhere near Berlin. The group ultimately end up in Bratislava, where they are horrified by the desolation of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War. Having realised that there is a great exchange rate for the U.S. dollar, they decide to have some fun and the group goes to a nightclub. Drunk on absinthe, Jenny and Jamie French-kiss and make out with each other, witnessed by Scotty and Cooper, and are horrified when they realize what they are doing. The next day, an American-obsessed Slovak man named Tibor (Rade Šerbedžija) finally drives them to Berlin. Scott and Cooper soon find out that Mieke has gone with a tour group for the summer and will likely be reachable in Rome for only a short time. In order to afford plane tickets to Rome to search for Mieke, Jamie sells his precious Leica M7 camera.

In Rome, the four friends head to the Vatican City, where Mieke is touring before leaving for her summer at sea. To gain access, they pretend to be a tour group, with Jamie acting as their guide, another group has lost their guide and joins, allowing Scott and Cooper to search for Mieke. Inside the Vatican, Scott and Cooper accidentally signal the death of the pope and the election of a new pope. Scott appears on a balcony in papal vestments, where he is taken to be the new pope and spots Mieke among the crowd below. While Scott is meeting up with Mieke, the Swiss Guards realize what is going on and detain Scott and Cooper in order to punish them for their actions. However, the Manchester United football supporters from London suddenly show up at the Vatican just in time to release Scott and Cooper. Scott later finally introduces himself, and confesses his love for Mieke in person, with Mad Maynard giving some last-minute advice. Mieke is happy to see Scott, and after having passionate sex with him in one of the confessional booths, tells him to continue writing to her. Jamie is so convincing as a tour guide he is hired by Arthur Frommer. On the flight back to Ohio, Jenny entices Cooper to have sex with her in one of the plane's lavatories, thus finally realizing his dream of crazy European sex. The film ends when Scott moves to Oberlin College in the fall. During a phone conversation with Cooper, who is now in a relationship with Jenny, an unexpected knock on Scott's dorm room door turns out to be Mieke, who explains that, due to another misunderstanding about her name, is now his roommate. Scott and Mieke share their passionate embrace, as Cooper's voice continues to talk over the phone, demanding to know what is going on.

Cast

Production

Writers Mandel, Berg, and Schaffer all directed while only Schaffer could achieve director credit, according to the DVD filmmaker commentary. Also according to the commentary track, all scenes were filmed in Prague, the Czech Republic, especially in the streets close to the Rudolfinum. The opening scene set in the United States was filmed at the International School of Prague. The scene where the main characters are boarding at the Paris railway station was filmed in Prague's main railway station (Hlavní nádraží). The scene inside Vatican City was actually filmed in Prague's National Museum. The scenes with a German lorry driver were taken at unfinished D5 motorway near Pilsen.

Reception

Critical response

EuroTrip received mixed reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 46% rating based on 119 reviews.^[2] On Metacritic, the film scored 45 out of 100 based on 30 reviews.^[3]

In her review in Salon.com, Stephanie Zacharek wrote, "The giddy ridiculousness of “Eurotrip” is a pleasant surprise: The picture starts out slow and unsteady in its rhythms. But just when you begin to wonder if it’s ever going to get funny, or if it’s going to be merely desperate all the way through, it lifts off like a wobbly helicopter—and somehow it keeps flying."^[4] Ultra Culture blogger Charlie Lyne, who also introduced a screening of the film in 2011 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, wrote that "EuroTrip is satire at its most brazenly self-loathing and audaciously entertaining."^[5]

Many critics derided the film for its overt sexism. In the New York Times, Elvis Mitchell noted that "almost every girl in the movie with fewer than 10 lines to speak has to take her top off."^[6] In his review for Village Voice, Michael Miller critiqued the film for its "constant anxiety that women might turn out to be men and vice versa."^[7]

Box office

The film was released in the United States and Canada on February 20, 2004 in 2,512 theaters. Over its opening weekend, the film grossed $6,711,384. It went on to gross $17,771,387 in the United States and Canada and $3,025,460 in other territories for a worldwide total of $20,796,847.^[1]

Home media

The film was released on DVD in the U.S. on June 1, 2004, in an R-rated theatrical version (90 minutes) and an "Unrated" extended version (92 minutes). The film was to premiere on HBO on April 2, 2005, but the studio scrapped the premiere due to the death of Pope John Paul II. In the film, there is an image of the Pontiff and a Vatican setting.

Soundtrack

Eurotrip
Soundtrack album by various artists
Released	February 24, 2004
Genre	Punk rock, pop
Label	Milan

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link

1. "Scotty Doesn't Know" – Lustra
2. "My Generation" – Chapeaumelon (The Who cover)
3. "Wild One" – Wakefield
4. "99 Red Balloons" – Goldfinger (Nena cover)
5. "In the City" – The Jam
6. "Shooting Stars" – Cauterize
7. "Nonchalant" – Chapeaumelon
8. "Scotty Doesn't Know" (Euro Version) – MC Jeffsky
9. "Make My Dreams Come True" – Apollo 440
10. "Du" – David Hasselhoff (Peter Maffay cover)
11. "Les Promesses" – Autour De Lucie
12. "Walking in the Clouds" – Basement Jaxx
13. "I Love Marijuana" – Linval Thompson
14. "Turn It Up" – Ugly Duckling
15. "Get Loose" – The Salads

Additional songs

The film features additional tracks not included on the soundtrack album:

• "Morning Train (9 to 5)", a song by Sheena Easton plays after the football hooligans, having forced Scott and Cooper to "sing the Manchester United song", approve of Scott's altered ending to the song
• "England 5 – Germany 1", a song by the seminal English Oi! band The Business, plays on the hooligan bus trip to Paris
• "Prosper", a song by Maurice Chevalier is playing over the background in the scene at the Louvre when the panning camera stops and returns to ogle a beautiful brunette
• "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood plays during the robot fight scene outside the Louvre.
• "Ça plane pour moi", a song by Belgian musician Plastic Bertrand, can be heard when the four friends first get on the train.
• Donna Summer's 1979 hit "Hot Stuff" is featured in the scene where the four are on the train to Amsterdam.
• "Let Forever Be", a song sung by Noel Gallagher of Oasis on lead vocals and performed by The Chemical Brothers. It can be heard in the unrated edition where the twins are seen drunkenly kissing each other
• Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch"; the song can be heard in the film when Cooper is walking in Amsterdam looking for Club Vandersexx.
• "Keine Überdosis Deutschland", a song by Normahl, can be heard during the journey through Germany to Bratislava
• "The Sacred War" during the visit in Slovakia
• "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet is used during the flight from Berlin to Rome
• "Horndog" by Overseer plays during the club scene in Eastern Europe

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: EuroTrip

• EuroTrip at the Internet Movie Database
• EuroTrip at AllMovie
• EuroTrip at Box Office Mojo
• EuroTrip at Rotten Tomatoes
• EuroTrip at Metacritic