The Stag (2013)

A very funny and entertaining Irish movie. Irish. Need I say more? U2, Irish guys, Irish humor. In the same time is funny, touchy and it makes you think about friendship, about taking life too serious and about sometimes making fun about all the craps you might find in the way. Each character of the movie has it's own charm and each character is so different than the others. The authors managed, somehow to make them perfect together in a very unique and, with the risk of repeating myself, funny movie. The plot keeps you in front of the screen and one cannot help of wondering how will the big finale be. It was totally worth seeing it and I'm already making plans to see it again with my U2 fans friends.

I'm not quite sure why this film has so many bad reviews. I know a lot of people saw the trailer and dismissed it as a Hangover wannabe, but this film was far from it.The cast was amazing and the film had a surprising depth to it, I was expecting a silly stag comedy, but instead got a movie that was really character-focused, rather than situation-focused. I do disagree with the film being renamed for American audiences, because the film has the word "Stag" in it multiple times, and honestly, you can sort of work it out. "The Bachelor Weekend" really does sound like the name of a bad rip off of The Hangover from a $2 shop.The only other issue I had with it was the lack of chemistry between the bride and the groom, but they're not seen together much in the film so it's pretty much a non-issue. Don't watch this film if you're looking for a trashy comedy, it's probably not for you.It actually felt a bit like The World's End, there was plenty of comedy, and the cinematography was brilliant, but the main focus was on a few metro men in their mid thirties being strung along by a madman.

The best part about the movie was the Irish Countryside and it is easy to get a grant from the Irish Film Board. A lot of the scenes appear to have been duplicated from other movies. The jokes were stale and predictable. A lot of the actors were miscast, especially, if the movie was geared towards an American audience. There was little chemistry between the bride and groom and there was no originality to the movie. I felt little empathy for the characters as they represented everything I disliked about the celtic tiger. The movie had potential, but needed to be worked on a few months more. The budget was clearly minute, so fair play for delivering a film on such a tight budget.

A frothy romp, encompassing all those aspects of the human condition designed by a bored deity for the amusement of pilgrims trudging the road to happy destiny: nudity, the institution of marriage, and the question that has bedevilled the Boy Scout movement since Baden Powell's day: whether to jerk off inside or outside the communal tent. But for this critic the film was lifted out of the ordinary by the virtuoso performance of B. McCaughley (as B. McCaughly) as father of the bride. I thought he brought to the role a perfect balance between the gravitas, the graceful aplomb, of a James Robertson Justice and the elfin charm of an arthritic David Norris. His performance will come as no surprise to stage cognoscenti, who will not easily forget Honey, Well I shrunk the Kids (1980), or the hilarious frilly-knickers tour-de-force Under the Boardwalk (1991). And breathes there a cinema buff who has not gripped the edge of his tip-up seat throughout the thrilling 2002 suspense drama The Smoking Hoover? But it is a sad measure of the parochialism of the Irish cinema scene that this splendid thespian is nowadays better known among the tattooed and bearded roughnecks of the Oakland chapter than among the Great Unwashed in the one-and-thruppenies here at home.