Lazy, sentimental, and fundamentally good-natured, this Christmas bro-com fits like a holiday-patterned Cosby sweater bought from the January discount bins. It’s not a good movie, but what do we really expect from a Seth Rogen vehicle at this time of year?
Well, in order of importance, I’d posit 1. male bonding, 2. drug and male-anatomy jokes, 3. some sort of wacky quest, and 4. the inevitable dull business of growing up and treating women as equals. “The Night Before” supplies all these, ribbon neatly tied, without any of the unruly but truthful eruptions of “Superbad” or “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”
A quick prologue, delivered by Tracy Morgan in the rhymed couplets of the famous Yuletide poem by Clement Clarke Moore, establishes that morose musician Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was orphaned back in ’01, then befriended by Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie), now a married lawyer and PED-juiced football star, respectively.
Their annual Christmas Eve project to cheer up poor Ethan — via karaoke, copious drinking and Cosby sweaters — has hardened into an unwelcome December obligation. This year, the latter two resolve, will be their last. Ethan, still heartbroken over losing Diana (Lizzy Caplan, of “Masters of Sex”), needs to sink or swim as a 33-year-old adult.
I trust that Rogen, director Jonathan Levine (“50/50,” “Warm Bodies”), and their gaggle of writers sent David Sedaris a check for making poor Ethan a holiday elf-for-hire. Their premise here, and it isn’t a bad one, is to riff on as many Christmas perennials as possible — from jukebox standards to Charles Dickens to “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Die Hard.”
In the latter instance, Broad City’s Ilana Glazer makes a real impression as a malicious sneak thief who models herself on Hans Gruber. And Michael Shannon shows up as a nicely dry, omniscient drug dealer (nothing at all like Frank Capra’s Bedford Falls benefactor). These tangents are funnier than our central trio, all of them too old for these millennial pratfalls and hijinks.
Mindy Kaling and a certain pop star also drop by, also to good effect, as does Mrs. Seth Rogen, who sends the very stoned Isaac into a tizzy with some unwanted sexting. If you sit through “The Night Before” without enjoying a few dumb laughs, your heart is frozen. But compared to the likes of “Scrooged” or “Elf,” or even the sacred “Die Hard,” such seasonal stoner sentimentality will be thawed, soggy, and stale by Thanksgiving.
Brian Miller is Arts Editor for Seattle Weekly. He can be reached at bmiller@seattleweekly.com.
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“The Night Before”
Rating: R, for drug use and language throughout, some strong sexual content and graphic nudity
Showing: Alderwood 7, Cinebarre Mountlake Terrace, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Sundance Cinemas Seattle, Woodinville and Cascade Mall
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