The Night Before (2015)

Seth Rogan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anthony Mackie and Michael Shannon star in this 2015 comedy. This takes place in New York where we meet 3 pals, Isaac (Rogan), Ethan (Levitt) and Chris (Mackie) who are about to have one last tradition together on Christmas Eve. Ethan finds 3 tickets to a party and along the way they encounter a mysterious man, Mr. Green (Shannon) who puts their lives in a magical yet whacky perspective. James Franco, Miley Cyrus and Tracy Morgan also appear. This is a good comedy with humorous and bizarre moments with a great cast. I recommend this.

Two years late with this review, but never been a big Seth Rogen fan. Yet, I will now reiterate myself and watch "The Night Before" countless times in addition to exploring comedies with the various cast from "TNB". Seth Rogen in his PRIME, the movie would not have been a movie without Rogen. Damn phenomenal performance.

The real-life link: the obvious-even the best friends can not take care of you forever because they too have their own lives. It makes you think how unless you have a partner that cares for you, no one else that is not family will never become family. People get shown this often that sparkly why people rush into relationships as long as it is a relationship. But is that true? Is it true that when your family is gone, unless you have a girlfriend/boyfriends wife/husband no one will ever become your family? Plausibility: poor. When you loose your family, two friends showing by your door will not make you totally forget what happened. This movies seems to believe that they do. Character development: we do see growth. We see Ethan realising that he needs to accept change and its fears in order to be able to grow. We see him and the others realising that things will inevitably change and that change needs to be accepted. Diana is a character I liked. She knew that Ethan proposing to her was on pure intentions, he just wanted to escape the fear of abandonment, she knew that he still had not reflected on what was the actual reason why she did not want to be with him. She knew she wanted commitment and hope for a future, family. She realised that she won't get that from Ethan until he accepted that change was necessary and that he wanted that change. She did not get back with him until he understood that. That is a strong character. Storytelling: poor. The story moves slow and as much as the nutcracker party tries to steer the movie in one direction, the story lie falls apart and in some instances even becomes boring. Not to mention some Christmas clichés that the movie has.

Friends Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) Isaac (Seth Rogen)and Chris (Anthony Mackie) are 30 something men who decide to spend the night before Christmas out on the tiles in New York City. Isaac is settled down now so this is intended as one last 'hurrah' for the men and when they hear about the best party in town known as the 'Nutcracker' they make it their mission to get to this party, but when you're high this seemingly straight-forward task becomes increasingly difficult for the three men.Accepting from an early stage that this is nothing more than The Hangover at Christmas I was initially happy to take it for what it is and it actually begins OK. The three men are all at different stages in their lives and join together to try to re-live their glory years. I found I could identify with the men and was prepared to accept that a predictable journey of self-discovery was going to ensue for all of the men...What I wasn't prepared for was just how much mush and sentimentality director and writer Jonathan Levine managed to cram into this film. Now don't get me wrong I'm prepared to accept that many Christmas films have some sentiment in them and I appreciate that Levine was trying to highlight the importance of love and friendship, but it felt like he had no real faith in his audience and it seemed that he had to spell out his message at virtually every single plot turn. Nearly every amusing moment and scene is rounded off with soppiness and morality and in themselves these things are not negatives, but when they're featured in nearly every scene it really starts to grate and become repetitive. I think the worst example of this was the weed-thief who despite being a self-proclaimed Grinch still had to have a sappy moment before the pretty amusing Die Hard parody that followed. It was like Levine was too frightened to take any risks and thought 'Oh no!!! I better put some sentiment in at the end of this scene in case I upset the audience.' I honestly don't believe I ever seen so much sap in one film and it really does drag the film down.It's actually ironic that Levine loads his film with so much mawkish sentiment about love and friendship in order to get the audience to understand what Christmas is all about, but then crams the film with shameful amounts of product placement and advertisements which effectively commercialise Christmas which negates what Christmas is all about; seriously a stretch Limo with Red Bull plastered on the side of it in huge letters is hardly subtle not to mention the number of times Red Bull itself is mentioned and Anthony Mackie announcing that his Sony Experia phone is the biggest phone on the market. When scrutinised this all seems rather hypocritical.Even if you overlook the mawkish sentiment and the ridiculous product placement the story is only really effective on odd occasions. The plot itself is incredibly thin and is painfully stretched over 90 odd minutes. It's actually past the hour mark before they reach the party and up to this point the narrative is rather scattershot and unfocused. The scene where Chris gets his weed stolen is actually repeated twice and Seth Rogen's drug-induced stupor is amusing at times, but again becomes a one-note concept that becomes repetitive and tiresome and Mackie and Gordon-Levitt are never really given any funny material to work with. One thing I will concede is that their friendship is generally believable which is one thing that does work in the film's favour.The Night Before is at its best when it is parodying other films such as Big, Home Alone and Die Hard and its self-awareness like this that is one of its biggest strengths. It isn't a complete laugh-dodge either and there are some genuinely funny moments dotted about here and there - Michael Shannon as Mr Green is responsible for some of the best moments in the film and manages to be funny, but in a low-key and subtle way. However, the relentless mush and sentiment just gets too much and in some ways it shows a lack of bravery on Levine's behalf - it really could have been a great anti PC Christmas film like Bad Santa. The fact that it sells itself as a raucous film about three grown men getting wasted and off their face on drugs and then suffocating the film with sentiment ultimately results in a tonal clash which left me rather unsatisfied when the credits finally started rolling.