Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, almost everyone in the world knows Sacha Baron Cohen and his alter ego, Borat. Writer/director/actor Atilla Végh puts his own spin on an outlandish character and brings audiences Luca Wanderbaum, aka The Swiss Traveller, a television host traveling around the country and documenting his destinations and encounters.
The Great American Road Trip in America begins with a parade in South Pasadena on the Fourth of July because that date is about as American as you can get. We’re introduced to Luca Wanderbaum (Végh), dressed in lederhosen and a tyrolean hat, as he asks locals where the best places to visit are. His attire immediately lets us know the kind of “character” we’re dealing with. Wanderbaum believes the start of his travels is Washington, D.C., except he’s actually in Los Angeles at the Hollywood sign. This sets the tone that not all the landmarks he visits will necessarily be the actual places he thinks they are.
You also can’t have a television host without a proper local, for-hire producer, and that’s where Robert Palmer (Robert A. Palmer) comes in. Palmer plays the straight man to Wanderbaum’s folly. Their journey together and the hijinks that ensue drive the story.
“Wanderbaum travels around the country interviewing different people at some of his stops.
Once upon a time, when I took hosting classes, the teacher said the best way to get practice and create content was by doing man-on-the-street interviews. This film essentially takes that concept and adds to it. Wanderbaum travels around the country interviewing different people at some of his stops. However, if it were just straight interviews all the way through, that would get boring. There has to be some kind of story or antics, and that’s where some of the genius filmmaking takes place, mainly because it’s relatively cheap to execute, other than the cost of gas and maybe some lodging. At one point, they even use their accommodations as part of the story, with Wanderbaum describing a first-class hotel that is actually a luxury tent with two beds, or what some would call “glamping.”
In the car, GoPros were installed to document the ride, and I can just imagine Végh and Palmer brainstorming before improvising dialogue in character, trying out different conversations and retakes that could be edited later. It’s almost like a YouTuber creating content and having to redo takes because they couldn’t get their thoughts across or found a better way to say something. With all that time spent driving, I’m sure they had everything polished by the time they arrived at their final destination.
Watching the duo travel across the country really made me wonder if they had planned everything out beforehand and discussed the scenarios, or if they simply stopped somewhere, looked at a map, and said, “That place sounds fun.” One particular stop to watch for is when they hit Las Vegas. That location definitely made me think it was in their plans all along.
The concept of taking a foreign man and putting him in a foreign land is not new. I would look at this film as an homage to Borat, but with its own uniqueness. I always admire anyone who can pull this off and stay in character because I would give in so fast, just like a failed bad prank. Perhaps the biggest highlight of the film is when Wanderbaum meets Tom Cruise, or at least his doppelganger.
"…That place sounds fun."
