NOVEMBER 25, 2015
A Seth Rogen Christmas movie. A sentence I never thought that I would ever write.
But now we have “The Night Before,” yet another Rogen vehicle in which stoners are resisting the need to grow up. Fresh off a highly-regarded dramatic turn in Danny Boyle’s “Steve Jobs,” Rogen has again surrounded himself with other very good actors (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie, wonderful all, giving the film some dramatic bona fides), this time in a film of holiday silliness.
Ethan (Gordon-Levitt) lost his parents in a car crash on Christmas Eve 2001, and to cheer him up, his best friends Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Mackie) took him out for a night of debauchery. The trio has continued this tradition every year since, but by 2015, their lots in life have changed. Isaac is about to become a first-time dad, and Chris has achieved world-wide fame as a pro football player. (Ethan, however, is still a failed musician.) By mutual agreement, they’ve decided that 2015 will be their final Christmas Eve blowout together.
To mark the occasion, Isaac’s wife Betsy (Jillian Bell) gives him a gift box of..ahem…pharmaceuticals, which Isaac proceeds to ingest almost immediately. It doesn’t turn out well. Meanwhile, Chris is trying to get some weed for his team’s star quarterback, but their dealer (Michael Shannon, of all people, in a very funny turn) just wants to chat. Ethan has found (or stolen) 3 tickets to the ultra-exclusive Nutcracker Ball, a party to which the guys have always yearned to be invited. They soon run into Ethan’s ex Diana (Lizzy Caplan), for whom Ethan still holds a torch, and her best friend Sarah (Mindy Kaling). Isaac and Sarah somehow wind up with each other’s phones, and Isaac proceeds to get texted a bunch of dick pics all night from someone named “James.” “James” turns out to be James Franco (of course), and when Isaac compliments him on the size of his package, sparks begin to fly.
Oh, and there’s Miley Cyrus, too.
To be honest, “The Night Before” is not a very good film, nowhere near the quality of Rogen’s previous apocalyptic stoner movie “This Is the End,” which he co-directed along with Evan Goldberg, who produced this film. “This Is the End,” which I thought was one of the best films of 2013, had a unity to it that is missing here, but I have to say that “The Night Before” still has a number of laugh-out-loud moments, and in a multiplex filled with Oscar bait, you might just want to chill out with Seth Rogen puking through midnight Mass.
GRADE: C+
To Exact Change Today readers: I’m taking a few days off to share Thanksgiving with friends & family in Seattle, but I’ll be back at the desk on Monday to deal with the latest nonsense. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
