The Night Before

Directed by Jonathan Levine, The Night Before follows three friends (Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Ethan, Seth Rogen’s Isaac, and Anthony Mackie’s Chris) as they head out for an evening of total debauchery on Christmas Eve – with the trio encountering a whole host of oddball figures and comedically-tinged scenarios along the way. Filmmaker Levine, working from a script written with Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, and Evan Goldberg, delivers an entertaining yet increasingly erratic comedy that benefits rather substantially from the engaging, charismatic work of its stars, and it’s clear, too, that the movie’s watchable atmosphere is heightened by an ongoing emphasis on laugh-out-loud bits of over-the-top silliness – with the most obvious example of this everything involving Isaac’s drug-fueled antics (ie it’s as uproarious and hilarious as one might’ve hoped). It’s clear, then, that The Night Before‘s overall impact is hampered and diminished by a padded-out third act that’s far too sentimental for its own good, as Levine aggressively attempts to tug at the viewer’s heartstrings to a degree that ultimately becomes a little oppressive – which does, in the end, ensure that the picture concludes on a disappointingly (and distressingly) anticlimactic note. Still, The Night Before is, for much of its running time, a decent-enough holiday comedy that admittedly does manage to put an innovative spin on a well-worn genre.

**1/2 out of ****