"The Couch Trip" is a frustrating film to watch because it is so uneven. Portions that show Dan Aykroyd playing a radio shrink are amazingly good...and some other parts, such as what Donna Dixon's character does at the very end, simply look sloppy and don't fit in the story.

John Burns (Aykroyd) is a most unusual man. While he's very bright and sure knows how to manipulate people, he's also spent much of his adult life in various institutions...such as prisons and psychiatric hospitals.

John's psychiatrist, Dr. Baird, is tired of this patient's antics in the hospital and has arranged to have him sent to prison instead. But when John is left alone in the Doctor's office, the phone rings...and John answers and pretends to be Baird. Well, it turns out a famous radio psychiatrist (Charles Grodin) wants him to fill in for him at his practice...and on his syndicated radio show. Not wanting to be sent to prison, John soon escapes and finds his way to California...where he soon becomes a very popular radio host....even more so than the man he's temporarily replacing.

The basic plot I mentioned above was VERY good. But the writer had problems with subplots....which tended to be more distracting than funny. This is especially true with Walter Matthau's character during much of the film. Additionally, the two real psychiatrists are more caricatures than believable in any way...especially how they both act near the end.

So what did I think of this? Well, I loved Aykroyd and his character. As for everyone else, they just weren't consistently written and tended to take away from the otherwise funny plot. Worth seeing but too uneven to merit more than a 6.

With famous psychiatrist Charles Grodin on the verge of having a nervous breakdown and needing a London vacation with his cheating wife (Mary Gross),members of his staff want to hire Dr. Lawrence Baird (David Clennon) to fill in for him. What they get is the brutally honest Dan Ackroyd, a patient at the clinic that Baird looks at, stealing his identity and using the invitation he managed to get by answering Baird's phone, and Ackroyd stirs things up by giving advice to patients that psychiatrists probably would never give but probably should consider. He finds himself blackmailed by a phony preacher (Walter Matthau),and Ackroyd desperately tries to keep his real identity from being revealed, having fallen for the pretty Donna Dixon who works for Grodin's practice.

There's plenty of laughs in this con-artist comedy that starts off on a revealing note with patient Ackroyd taking over what Clennon is trying to do with suicidal patient Michael DiLorenzo, giving the audience a taste of what Ackroyd would do if he actually had a patient on the couch. Joining fellow SNL alumni Ackroyd and Gross is Victoria Jackson as Clennon's secretary who has been having a fling with patient Ackroyd unbeknownst to Clennon's knowledge. The problem is that the laughs come from an uncomfortable place because practically all of the characters are pretty unlikable (with only Dixon saved from that),and Matthau really seems to have no purpose in being here. This is one of those big screen comedies that probably was quickly forgotten after its brief theatrical release. I know at the video store I worked at that it basically sat on the shelf (rentals and sales) collecting dust after the first few weeks after its VHS release.

"The Couch Trip" is one of those silly comedies that they cranked out in the '80s. In this case, Dan Aykroyd plays a mental patient who poses as a psychiatrist, and he goes to Beverly Hills to sub for Charles Grodin. Most of the movie's humor springs from their satirical look at Beverly Hills and people's empty lives there (a woman has a power struggle with her maid).

It's the sort of movie that you just watch to have a good time. Don't expect any kind of religious experience. But you'll most likely laugh a lot at how the Beverly Hills people flaunt their wealth. Also starring Walter Matthau, Donna Dixon, Arye Gross and Victoria Jackson (of "UHF").