Girls Trip 2017 * * 1/2 Stars

Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Year: 2017
Rated R
Rating: * * 1/2 Stars
Cast: Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish

"Girl, you can't get no infection in your booty hole! It's a booty hole". That's just one of the quotes from 2017's Girls Trip (my latest review). In it, Tiffany Haddish plays the fool-mouthed Dina. Dina is truly an iconic character and probably the reason "Trip" has become such a big box office hit. Like Kathryn Hahn in last year's Bad Moms, Haddish proves that women can be just as perverse as any strapping male counterpart. There's no filter or the ability to maintain self-control in her front. Haddish just lets it rip, so to speak.

Now based on her spitfire performance involving dry humping, cussing, and psychotic malaise, you wonder if Tiffany is either a darn good actress or just playing herself. After seeing Haddish talk in interviews with Jimmy Kimmel and such, I'm gonna have to go with the latter.

Directed with pedestrian solace by Malcolm  D. Lee (The Best Man Holiday, Scary Movie 5) and distributed by Universal Pictures, Girls Trip is about four best friends who get together for a weekend in The Big Easy. Basically, "Trip" is like Bridesmaids, New Orleans style!

Girls Trip, with its behind closed doors girl talk and its unrealistic consumption of trouper alcohol intake, isn't as humorous as Bridesmaids. However, "Trip" is definitely more established than stuff like Rough Night and 2012's Bachelorette. It's the quintessential (gross) chick flick that only groups of tight-knit females would flock to. That means no dudes allowed. Ha!

Anyway, Girls Trip is a hit-or-miss farce that throws everything at you but the kitchen sink. Yup, it's pretty raunchy stuff. "Trip" gives the audience full frontal nudity, projectile urine, multiple penis references, and a scene in which a woman performs simulated fellatio using a banana and a grapefruit. Oh yeah, you can also throw in drug use, drug references, fierce sexual innuendo, and surprisingly violent cat-fights as well. So anyhow, you know the term ladylike? Well "Trip" leaves that locution happily by the wayside.

All in all, Girls Trip clocks in at just over two hours. Improvised with a clunky script while using the Essence Music Festival as a taunt, product placement, the film meanders and wanders without so much as a meaningful account. The last quarter of "Trip" is where things start to settle down. A mild drama arises with an actual story of friendship, infidelity, and relationships coming about. Still, Girls Trip is billed as a nasty comedy for most of the way. And while it does have a couple of outrageous moments, "Trip" tries almost too hard for a laugh as it fiercely coerces some dramatization with the funny. My rating: 2 and a half stars.

Written by Jesse Burleson