It’s All About the Celebrity Drug Stories

“Have a Good Trip,” a documentary that premieres on Netflix on Monday, May 11, is a historical past lesson about the best way that hallucinogenic medicine had been as soon as utilized in army testing by the U.S. authorities.

And it’s a dialogue of why hallucinogens like LSD have the potential for use to combat a big selection of situations, together with PTSD, melancholy and dependancy.

But actually, if you wish to see “Have a Good Trip,” it’s not due to these issues. It’s as a result of that is the film the place well-known individuals speak about their most memorable experiences whereas on medicine.

That’s the actual enchantment of director Donick Cary’s movie, whose subtitle is “Adventures in Psychedelics” — to take heed to Sting, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, A$AP Rocky, Deepak Chopra, Sarah Silverman, Ben Stiller, Paul Scheer, Rosie Perez, Nick Kroll and others speak about their, effectively, adventures in psychedelics.

So Sting describes serving to a cow by way of a troublesome delivery on his farm whereas beneath the affect of peyote. Bourdain talks about an LSD/Quaalude celebration that resulted in a useless lady on the ground of his motel room (besides that, whew, she wasn’t useless in any case). Fisher particulars the time, on the top of her Princess Leia fame, when she dropped acid whereas sunbathing topless on a seaside within the Seychelles after which discovered a busload of Japanese vacationers snapping photographs. A$AP Rocky says whereas having intercourse on LSD, a rainbow shot out of his penis — “and I don’t even like rainbows.”

Of course, it wouldn’t do exactly to have speaking heads describe these occasions — and that’s the place “Have a Nice Trip” runs into difficulties.

The filmmakers, in any case, are effectively conscious that depicting drug experiences on display is a tough factor certainly. At one level, actor and comic Steve Agee, speaking about each acid journey he’s ever seen portrayed in a movie, declares, “They have by no means, ever nailed it.”

And whereas “Have a Good Trip” tries actually, actually laborious to not fall into the standard traps that make placing hallucinatory experiences on display look foolish, it might probably’t assist itself. Despite psychedelic animated sequences, and regardless of purposefully ridiculous re-enactments — one that includes Rob Corddry taking part in a younger Paul Scheer, adopted by one with Scheer taking part in a younger Corddry — it runs smack into one inescapable truth: the issues that persons are describing are at all times weirder and wilder and possibly extra attention-grabbing than what we’re taking a look at.

No matter what Conick and his group does, their animated sequences and re-enactments can’t assist however be extra typical and mundane than the tales they’re making an attempt for instance — which is OK once they’re intentionally recreating a tacky anti-drug propaganda movie, much less so once they’re tackling lysergic-laced sagas from the array of celeb trippers.

Yes, the bargain-basement look is a tacit admission that you just actually needed to be there, nevertheless it’s nonetheless irritating, and it will get wearying because the movie goes on.

But regardless of that massive shortcoming, you possibly can be taught stuff from “Have a Good Trip.” For occasion:

• Don’t drive on acid.
• Don’t look within the mirror on acid.
• Don’t take acid round strangers, significantly in the event that they’re a–holes.
• For assist coming down out of your journey, go to McDonalds.

To say these are essential classes, in fact, is to recommend that viewers will stroll away from “Have a Good Trip” desirous to strive hallucinogens themselves. And, you already know, a few of them in all probability will. After all, who’re we to doubt the enlightened likes of Sting and Deepak Chopra once they attest to the worth of tripping? “I don’t think psychedelics are the answer to mankind’s problems,” Sting says at one level. “But they could be a start.”

And hell, even the unhealthy journeys described by Ben Stiller and Rosie Perez make for humorous tales.

The movie pays lip service to the concept that these medicine should not for everyone — however because the entire level is to spin enjoyable anecdotes and to mock anti-drug public service…