A comedic holiday binge
There can’t be a better job in Hollywood right now than being a Method actor in a Seth Rogen drug comedy.
“The Night Before” was clearly even more fun to make than it is to watch. As many booze- and hallucinogen-filled adventures as the characters are having in the film, one gets the impression that there was three times as much smoking and carousing and crashing of limousines when the cameras were turned off.
But there’s still plenty of laughs left over for the audience, and the aggressive randomness of the script fuels some genuinely inventive comic moments. Although the writers of this Rrated cinematic binge frequently lose their focus, they never lose their sense of humor.
“The Night Before” is hung with care on the barest of plots, involving Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who was orphaned as a young man during the holidays, and is wrapping up his tradition of spending Christmas Eve with pro football player Chris (Anthony Mackie) and lawyer Isaac (Seth Rogen).
Chris and Isaac seem incapable of cutting their own meat at the dinner table, much less rising to the top of challenging fields. As much as you root for the characters to have a good time in this film, you won’t want any of them to procreate.
But even if they’re not especially likable as individuals, as a group Ethan, Chris and Isaac are very sweet. This is well established during a montage set to “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” as read by Tracy Morgan, where the guys give each other an early iPod (“That (expletive) holds like 100 songs at a time!”) and karaoke with flawless choreography to RunDMC.
Rogen’s longtime collaborator Evan Goldberg seems to be the driving force among four credited screenwriters, who wisely choose a good gag over realism at nearly every turn. This film is closer to the Goldberg-penned “This Is the End” than “Superbad”; filled with apparent hallucinations and over-the-top celebrity cameos, even before the mushrooms take hold. Michael Shannon is particularly excellent as “Mr. Green,” an aging pot dealer whose intensity is a bad mix for the trio’s growing paranoia.
While the adventures are dude-focused, the women are given a refreshing amount to do in smaller roles. Jillian Bell is an asset as Isaac’s pregnant wife, offering him drugs that she bought on Craigslist as a blessing, and later begging him to run the other way when he stumbles upon her family at church. Mindy Kaling proves once again that she can hold her own in any comic situation, and Lorraine Toussaint plays against her normally ultra-serious casting as Chris’ mom.
“The Night Before” grooves along nicely until the end, when viewers are asked to take the protagonists a little more seriously. They’ve smoked and snorted and puked themselves into a corner, but as hard as we’ve been laughing at this trio, after an hour and a half there’s little reason to care very much about their personal journeys.
But the makers of this funny movie have jokes about that, as well. Beyond all the pop culture references, dumb behavior and the easily distracted “Christmas Carol” plotline, the movie doesn’t offer much to get audiences invested. You will only notice this deficiency when you’re not laughing.
One final note: “The Night Before” is one more argument in favor of marijuana legalization, so movie critics can finally be on the same foot as audiences in these stoner comedies. Based on the enthusiastic reaction by the guy next to me, who sneaked in a Chipotle burrito bowl during the screening, you should add another full star to my rating if you plan to smoke weed.