Pack Your Things And Go On A Hilarious Girls Trip

Girls Trip is the sort of movie that very much knows where its best assets are. It recognizes right off the bat that there's more humor and heart to be generated from making its lead four characters true blue friends instead of being individuals who are constantly at each other throats (though there is conflict between two of the members of the group to be sure), for instance. It also clearly knows that it's got plenty of strong performers filling out the lead roles and letting the plot mainly concern the characters caring for one another would be a better way to properly utilize said talents instead of having the four protagonists solely go through contrived conflicts with one another.

The result of these smart decisions is a comedy that really is uber funny and just a lot of fun to watch, two elements that have been direly missing from too many American comedies this year. The premise of Girls Trip itself concerns four women who met in college and became lifelong friends after that though they've drifted apart in recent years. Our four leads in this group are Ryan Pierce (Regina Hall), who's become a super famous media mogul, Sasha Franklin (Queen Latifah), who runs an internet gossip column and has a grudge against Ryan, party girl turned tranquil mother of two Lisa Cooper (Jada Pinkett-Smith) and the brash and unfiltered Dina (Tiffany Haddish).

Like I said, these four, despite being close pals, have drifted away in recent years, but they're all a reunion is in order as they all plan to spend the weekend in New Orleans getting into all kinds of antics. All of them sans Dina have got their own individual issues to deal with, most notably Ryan struggling with her constantly cheating husband Stewart (Mike Colter) and Lisa trying to come out of her shell once again though the majority of the plot in the first two acts is devoted to showing these four getting into all kinds of shenanigans across New Orleans while the third act deals with more dramatic tinged though still heavily comedic storytelling material.

But for the most part, Girls Trip is very much fixated on following the friendship between its four lead characters and that proves to be a winning element to situate a movie on. The four lead actors have strong chemistry together while it's also nice that, while each of them has their own distinctive personality traits, it's not like one or two of them are the straight-man figures to more zany characters but rather they're all rambunctious individuals capable of crazy shenanigans. This way, you can easily see the common traits they all share that would make it easy to see why they'd all get along so well, plus, you get more opportunities for jokes this way.

Speaking of jokes, Girls Trip is, most importantly, super funny, with gags both big (like an extended bit involving grapefruit) and just small bits of throwaway dialogue contributing to the films consistent steady stream of gags. Conversely, Girls Trip does have that problem a lot of comedies that go over the two-hour mark where it becomes clear you could have trimmed some scenes out to get a tighter edit for sure and there are some odd bits of editing, most noticeably, the occasional shots of characters speaking from behind their head where their dialogue doesn't match the brief glimpses of their mouths movements. That's a weird anomaly in the film visually though since otherwise director Malcolm D. Lee makes the film look far more cinematic than typical recent American comedies like The House which totally looked like a 2003 CBS sitcom.

But now let's talk about the best part about Girls Trip; its cast. Whoever was in charge of the casting of these four leads totally deserves some kind of medal, totally excellent work in this department. Regina Hall maintains likability even in her characters most self-centered moments thanks to Hall's conveying natural likability in Ryan Pierce while Queen Latifah reminds us all that it's a darn shame she hasn't had a ton of recent leading roles like this since she's super enjoyable as the internally conflicted Sasha Franklin. Jada Pinkett-Smith gets a lot of laughs depicting her character trying back into her party girl groove and Tiffany Haddish....oh man, this is a total star-making performance for Haddish. She's amazing here, getting many of the movies biggest laughs with her incredible comedic timing and the gleeful way she spews profanity and whatever else crosses her mind in a way that makes her character an absolute riot to be around. Haddish alone is worth going on this Girls Trip, though there is indeed plenty of other laughs to be found, don't worry.