The Night Before

The Night Before is a textbook definition of a scattershot movie.  It looks like it was largely made up on the spot, and basically looks like an excuse for a bunch of friends to get together and have fun while making a movie.  This is nothing new for star Seth Rogen, who has used this approach to great success in the past, most notably This is the End.  But this stoner holiday comedy doesn't feel quite as fresh as that accomplishment, even if it does have its moments.

Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Isaac (Seth Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) are best friends who traditionally get together every Christmas Eve, goof around in and around New York City, and generally attempt to get invited to a top secret dance party that's held every Christmas.  They've been getting together every year since 2001, when Ethan's parents died right before the holidays, and his friends came to be by his side to cheer him up.  But now that the guys are in their 30s, things are starting to change.  Isaac has a wife (Jillian Bell, funny in a small role) and a baby on the way, and Chris is now a professional athlete with celebrity endorsements coming left and right.  As for Ethan, he's still hurting after his latest relationship with the lovely Diane (Lizzy Caplan) came to an abrupt end.  Ethan knows that this is probably going to be his last Christmas with his friends, as they are starting to drift apart, and so he wants to make this one night count.

The guys do manage to snag tickets to the legendary Christmas party this year, but they are sidetracked by a series of misadventures.  Isaac decides to get high, and spends a majority of the night freaked out and talking to inanimate objects.  Chris tries to buy some weed for a celebrity friend from a philosophical drug dealer (Michael Shannon), and ends up having it stolen by a real live Grinch.  Meanwhile, Ethan is hoping he can patch things up with Diane.  There are a lot of celebrity cameos, most of which I will leave you to discover.  There's no real order to any of this.  It's occasionally clever, but usually very hit or miss.  The entire cast is game, and obviously having a great time.  This was clearly a lot of fun to make.  But in order for a movie like this to work, it has to reach a certain level of inspired insanity, and this movie is a little too low key to be entirely successful.

The Night Before could have benefited from a more unhinged tone.  As it plays out, it's a strange mixture of a stoner buddy comedy, and a sentimental holiday movie about discovering what's truly important.  There are few if any big comedic set pieces, and most of the jokes seem improvised by the actors as they're standing in front of the cameras.  There are also a number of movie references (Home Alone, Three Men and a Baby, Big) that don't so much parody these movies, as simply recall famous scenes from them.  The movie could have used more moments like the one where Isaac is trapped in a midnight mass church service, and starts tripping out during the middle of it.  That sequence has the wild and raucous atmosphere I was looking for in the rest of the movie.  Instead, a majority of the film seems to be focused so much on us liking these guys and feeling for them that it forgets we're supposed to be laughing also at times.

This is a movie that simply feels safe, from the adequate direction by Jonathan Levine, to the punch lines, which frequently don't hit as hard as they should.  It's not bad in any real way, but it also feels like a missed opportunity.  I was ready for a Christmas movie that wasn't afraid to be naughty.  What I got was a fairly standard one with just more lighted joints and alcoholic beverages than normal.

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