Review of The Night Before (2015) by Lane Z — 19 Jul 2016

Yes, it took me a few extra months to see The Night Before, which is geared toward seeing during the Christmas/Hannukah months, but it's never a bad idea to watch a raunchy comedy with as talented a cast as Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackey and Joseph Gordon-Levit now is it?

So while I am just now catching up, even without watching it during the aforementioned holidays, I still found myself succumbing to the holiday spirit. Rogen, Mackey and JGL venture off into the night in attempts to reach an historic party they've never been able to get to over the 15 or so years since they started a tradition of being together for the holidays. And while the meat of the movie doesn't rest on JGLs parents dying resulting in this tradition, it does lay the groundwork for the overall theme of the picture; growing up is hard to do. We've seen it time and time again. How does one accept responsibility when there's a child on the way or you begin to deal with fame or blah blah blah show me some hilarious partying and hijinks please!

While certain moments do give you the giggles courtesy of Rogen primarily, Mackey comes in a close second with JGL lagging way behind. In fact, the best performance outside Rogen is Michael Shannon. What a delight to see him play against-type as Mr. Green, appropriately named. The other guest spots are fun, though brief, and Lizzie Caplan and Jillian Bell are severely underused with such strong comedic prowess they have.

While The Night Before projects itself as a stoner Christmas comedy, unfortunately, it falls short by not going far enough with the outlandish to represent the former and instead tries to instill values and life lessons falling more in the latter.