The Night Before - Where are the jokes?

I’ll start by saying that I’ve been a long time fan of Seth Rogan, even through some of his (supposed) ‘misfires’ such as ‘The Green Hornet,’ therefore I was quite surprised that ‘The Night Before’ sneaked by my consciousness and popped up to view on an online streaming services.  I read the blurb about three old friends going out just before Christmas for one last big party before they all have to carry on with their adult lives and figured it would be worth an hour and a half of my time.  It wasn’t.

Since watching it I’ve read a number of reviews, many bashing it for its ‘glamourising drugs,’ one viewer going as far as to say that ‘the drugs were almost like a character in themselves.’ However, that didn’t bother me so much as the fact that I just didn’t laugh.  Most comedies fail to make you split your sides with laughter, but you should at least get a few chuckles and wry smiles out of a known comic actor’s offering.  I just didn’t.  There were simply no jokes.  There was a lot of shouting and a few gross scenes, plus a fair amount of swearing (again, swearing bothers me about as much as dtrug-use, but it needs to be incorporated into the jokes, rather than just to fit as many four-letter words in as possible).  There are undertones of likening the story to a modern retelling of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ therefore expect the odd (borderline) supernatural experience to be thrown in there.  I don’t know whether it was supposed to be really supernatural, or just brought on by the drugs, but it wasn’t necessary to what little plot there was and it certainly wasn’t as clever as it was supposed to be.

I wouldn’t even call the humour ‘crude,’ simply because there wasn’t any humour on display.  The three central characters just bumble from one drunken/drug-induced (supposedly comedic) set-piece to the next as they go around town.  If they were likeable you may actually care about their lives and the problems they’re (sort of) trying to escape from (namely growing up), but you don’t.  They come across as the sort of ‘bros’ you don’t wanna know.

I still like Seth Rogan and will look on this as the first of his ‘misfires’ that actually misfired with me.

3/10 Jabba the Hutt wipes himself down with this film