EuroTrip: Difference between revisions

EuroTrip
Directed by	Jeff Schaffer
Written by	Alec Berg, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer
Produced by	Alec Berg, Daniel Goldberg, David Mandel, Jackie Marcus
Starring	Scott Mechlowicz, Jacob Pitts, Michelle Trachtenberg
Distributed by	DreamWorks
Running time	90 minutes
Budget	~ US$25,000,000

EuroTrip is a 2004 American comedy film about a group of young Americans and their adventures traveling around Europe.

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The premise of the story is the online friendship between Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz), from the USA, and Mieke (Jessica Boehrs), from Germany. The character of Scott is modeled after real life Yale University student Scott Peachman, a lifelong friend of the screenwriter. Scott thinks that his penpal is male, and when Mieke finds out that Scotty was dumped, she wants to arrange a meeting with Scotty in the United States, prompting Scotty to call 'him' a "sick German freak" and telling Mieke never to speak to him again. The next morning, his younger brother tells him that Mieke is a girl's name. He then sets out to travel to Germany to meet her, accompanied by his best friend, and meeting up with two of their other friends.

• Ohio, United States: Start of the movie, where Scotty is dumped by his girlfriend Fiona and attends his graduation party. At the party, Fiona's new boyfriend under the name of Lustra sings the movie's theme song as a salute to her, called "Scotty Doesn't Know." Everyone except for Scott cheers with him as he sings. Following the party, Scott is asked to have a meeting with his pen pal in America, but since he thought she was a guy, he tells her how much of a freak she is and soon she blocks his e-mail address. Upon realizing she's actually a girl, Scott realizes he must travel to Germany to win her back.

• London, United Kingdom: Since the courier manager only had a flight going to London, they took that bargain for $118, with Cooper thinking that Europe is "the size of the Eastwood Mall". There they go to the Feisty Goat for a drink, and inside are soccer hooligans who chastise them for invading their privacy as it is a "Private members bar for the Manchester United football club". But after Scott successfully sings their anthem (9 to 5 (Sheena Easton song)), they are accepted.

• Paris, France: After being accepted by the Soccer hooligans, they board a bus across the channel and into France. Along the way, the bus driver fails to realize that he must drive on the right side of the road in France, thus causing a huge traffic commotion. Soon after Scotty and Cooper meet up with the twins and go to see the Louvre museum, although there is a huge line. While waiting endlessly, Scotty starts to beat up a talking robot. Also in Paris the four have dinner and plan their European vacation.

• France's northern coast: The group takes a train ride up here, where they go to a nude beach. To their dismay, it is full of naked men like them looking for girls. After Jenny takes off her shirt, they get chased down the beach by naked men desperate to see a nude girl.

• Amsterdam, Netherlands: A must-needed stop along the way, where Cooper goes to "Club Vandersexxx" and has one hell of a night. Scotty and Jenny go to a cafe and eat what they think are hash brownies and Jamie gets a blowjob from a girl in the camera store in an alley. Unfortunately, it is here where Jamie, who is in charge of all the money and identity, is robbed of everything and leaves the group with nothing.

• Bratislava, Slovakia: With no choice but to find a ride to Berlin, they manage to get a truck driver to pull over. Unfortunately, he does not speak English, and Scotty must use what little German he knows to communicate with him. He mishears him, thinks he is going to Berlin based on how many statements he makes about it, but really is going "nowhere near Berlin". So they end up in Bratislava, where they are horrified by Eastern Europe. They talk to a Slovakian, and discover that there is no train coming, it is still being built. It is also revealed the Slovakians are only just now receiving American TV shows from the 1980's, as evinced by the Slovakian saying "Miami Vice is number one new show man" and "Stop. Hammer time!" They only have $1.83 American, but due to the (exaggerated) exchange rate, they get the executive suite at a lavish Slovakian hotel. For 27 cents, they get into a nightclub and get lots of drinks, and the twins end up making out. The next morning, the same Slovakian (Šerbedžija) shows up in his Soviet Bloc car painted like the General Lee, and he drives them to Berlin.

• Berlin, Germany: A friend that the group made takes them to Berlin, but only to find out that Mieke is gone on a boat tour for the summer and will only be reachable in Rome for a short time for orientation. In order to afford airplane tickets, Jamie sells his precious Leica camera to earn enough money to fly to Rome.

• Vatican City: The final destination, Scotty and Cooper end up running through the Vatican, ringing the bell of Saint Marco (as Cooper pulls on its rope out of curiosity) as well as lighting up white smoke (by throwing Cooper's burning "pope hat" into the fireplace), which makes everyone think he will be the new pope. There he finds Mieke, and runs through many people and jumps down a rope to meet up with her. Although the swiss Vatican guards realized what was going on and attempted to stop them and severely punish them for their actions, the soccer hooligans from earlier in the movie come back and thwart their attempts. Soon after, Scotty introduces himself to Mieke and they spend time making out before Mieke must board her boat. A man who Jamie just took on a tour of the Vatican turns out to be Arthur Frommer, authour of the guidebook Jamie has and he hires Jamie to tour every museum and cathedral in Europe. It is here where the vacation ends and the group splits up to head back home.

• Oberlin College, Ohio, USA: At the end of the movie, Scott is in college following the summer, where out of nowhere Mieke becomes his roommate. The movie ends with them kissing and Cooper trying over and over again to talk to Scott on the phone.

Eurotrip's tagline was "no actual Europeans were harmed in the making of this film", and it is perhaps most notable for its many stereotypes of various European countries and their people. Prominent among them are:

• Eastern Europe, which is portrayed as poverty-stricken (Bratislava is visited by the group)
• The Netherlands, which is portrayed as very tolerant of drugs and prostitution (Amsterdam is visited)
• British people, who are portrayed as football hooligans
• French people, who are portrayed as boring and stuffy (as shown by the long line at the Louvre and the mention of one at the Eiffel Tower)
• German people, who are portrayed to still have neo-Nazi tendencies, as Mieke's step-brother paints himself a Hitler mustache and parades around the apartment.
• Italian people, who are portrayed as homosexual, characterized by a Italian man in the friends' compartment who makes moves on Jamie.
• Not only poking fun at foreign nationalities, the American protagonists are inherently shown as being naïve, boorish, or inappropriately hedonistic.

• Scott Mechlowicz – Scott (Scotty) Thomas
• Jacob Pitts – Cooper Harris
• Michelle Trachtenberg – Jenny
• Travis Wester – Jamie

Ohio

• Kristin Kreuk – Fiona
• Nial Iskhakov – Bert Thomas (Scott's brother)
• Matt Damon – Donny

London

• Vinnie Jones – Mad Maynard (Hooligans' leader)

Paris

• J.P. Manoux – Robot Man
• Patrick Rapold – Christoph
• Fred Armisen – Creepy Italian Guy on Train

Amsterdam

• Lucy Lawless – Madame Vandersexxx
• Go Go Dyei Jen-Michel – Rasta Waiter
• Jana Pallaske – Anna the Camera Store Girl
• Diedrich Bader – Mugger

Bratislava

• Dominic Raacke – Trucker
• Steve Hytner – Green Fairy

Berlin

• Walter Sittler – Mieke's father
• Adam Dotlacil – Heinrich

Vatican City

• Joel Kirby – Swiss Guard
• Jessica Boehrs – Mieke
• Patrick Malahide – Arthur Frommer
• Jack Marston – Pope John Paul II

• Official website
• Eurotrip at IMDb
• Lucy Lawless in Eurotrip