Road trip movies recently have either been a hit, such as “The Hangover,” or a miss, like “College Road Trip.” But Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogen drive this genre to new territories in the “simply OK” film, “The Guilt Trip.”

The movie’s predictable, silly storyline consists of Andy Brewster (Rogen), a struggling organic chemist who makes a once-in-a-lifetime visit to his mother in New Jersey before venturing on a cross country road trip to pitch his organic cleaning product to various distributors. With an ulterior motive in mind, he invites his overbearing, GAP obsessed, frog figurine-collecting mother, Joyce (Streisand), along.

And what ensues is an average, sometimes funny plot that consists of random pit stop-to-pit stop scenes.

Director Anne Fletcher has a history of producing average movies, for example “27 Dresses” and “The Proposal.” And “The Guilt Trip” stays in the exact same lane.

Originally, putting Streisand and Rogen together sounded like the oddest pairing possible. But after seeing them you realize they portray the perfect mother-son relationship with brilliance. They have such chemistry together. But the characters are heavily softened with Jewish stereotypes, which offers some chuckles.

Now, back to the pit stop scenes. Joyce getting her ears pierced and eating a 4 lb. cut of steak seem to be the hilarity points of the film. It seems as if these scenes were given no thought or creativity.

Streisand dropping the “F-bomb” seemed to get the biggest reaction out of the entire theatre, and myself for that matter.

Cross-country treks never seem to go as planned, and “The Guilt Trip” is no exception. There are a few potholes when it comes to the plot, but manages to swerve back on the road with the acting.

Like with most long drives with family, you look for fun all over in “The Guilt Trip.”

By: Tom Scearce