“Three bros, three dudes, three ride or die homes.” This sets the stage for the latest bro comedy “The Night Before,” opening in theaters this Friday November 20th. With big names like Seth Rogan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Anthony Mackie on the bill for this raunchy X-mas flick, expectations are high. Here’s some things to know.
If you haven’t caught the trailer, best friends Isaac (Rogen), Chris (Mackie), and Ethan (Gordon-Levitt) plan one more night of pre-Christmas debauchery before the tedium’s of adult-hood takeover. On a mission to carry out traditions like Run DMC karaoke and Nintendo 64 at Chris’ mother’s house, they are propelled from place to place trying to relive their youth. Yet their adult lives keep on getting in the way.
First off, the Christmas blasphemy was hilarious. Rogen makes like the hungry caterpillar through his golden box of every drug imaginable. This leads to his puking during a church service (while wearing his Star of David sweatshirt) as well as the mock “crucifixion” by wineglass of Chris’ football star teammate.
Gordon-Levitt gets his clock cleaned by two drunken Santa Clauses. Not to mention the seemingly omnipresent drug dealer’s angel winged descent to heaven to join black Santa with hot women in a hot tub.
“Jesus is not our key demographic in this…” Rogen joked on Jimmy Kimmel.
While the typical bro audience might not be amused, props must be given for honest to god “penis picks” onscreen. The female audience will either be grossed out or finally feel a sense of justice. Movies are loaded with boobs, everywhere. But it is far less common to glimpse a penis, even if only a phone picture. Really, not that everyone wants to see that, but to me it seems sexist that women are the only ones exposed. Justice served, sort of.
Love her or hate her, Miley Cyrus appeared randomly performing wrecking ball. With such a strong history of functional relationships, she gave typical “sage advice” to Ethan, ending in more disaster. Her appearance and weirdness compliments the movies series of jump-around sometimes random sequence of events, but the A-list cast and comedic sacrilege might not have been enough.
Where was the comradery? Though their traditions were based on a bond formed after Ethan’s parents died, much of the expected “bro-moments” were lost in a flood of lone excursions and occasional randomness. While each individual character had a strong storyline, it never felt like they were really best friends. Whether it be the acting or how it was scripted I just never really felt the bond between them that strongly.
For all the hype, it may have been a bit overreaching, yet still worth the watch. While there were many laugh out loud moments, I had hoped to see more of the do-or-die bro love between three actors that normally don’t fail to deliver.
“The Night Before” is playing at Marcus and AMC theaters all around the area.