{"id":10364,"date":"2024-12-12T00:09:04","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T05:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10364"},"modified":"2024-12-12T00:09:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T05:09:04","slug":"the-night-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/12\/the-night-before\/","title":{"rendered":"The Night Before"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Night Before <\/strong>(2015)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (drug use and language throughout, some strong sexual content, graphic nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jonathan Levine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jonathan Levine, Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir and Evan Goldberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marco Beltrami and Miles Hankins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Brandon Trost\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 20, 2015 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie, Lizzy Caplan, Jillian Bell, Michael Shannon, Mindy Kaling, Lorraine Toussaint, Helen Yorke, Ilana Glazer, Aaron Hill, Tracy Morgan (narrator).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $43M (US)\/$52.4M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0In case you think me a Grinch because I haven\u2019t liked many holiday-themed movies of the past 15 years (e.g. last week\u2019s tepid Love the Coopers), allow me to change your opinion by informing you that I liked The Night Before<\/strong>. I know, I\u2019m as surprised as you are.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I generally don\u2019t like the vulgar bro-comedies starring Seth Rogen and his posse (e.g. This Is the End, Neighbors). Maybe the Christmas spirit has already affected me, but I found myself enjoying The Night Before<\/strong>. While it\u2019s most definitely crude and crass, it\u2019s never mean-spirited. The characters are actually likable. To me, that\u2019s the greatest gift I can receive from a modern Christmas movie. Not all of the jokes hit the mark, which is typical of these bro-comedies. Some of them, like the bit about James Franco\u2019s penis (both actor AND body part make cameos), are dragged out. But it has a little over a handful of amusing moments. The best thing, however, about The Night Before<\/strong> is that its feel-good qualities, the ending in particular, are sincere. It\u2019s the cinematic equivalent of the person who means it when they say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d or \u201cHappy Hanukkah\u201d (Rogen is Jewish, after all).<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the past 14 years, Ethan (Levitt, The Walk) has spent Christmas Eve with his two best buds, Chris (Mackie, Falcon from the Marvel Universe) and Isaac (Rogen). They\u2019ve been his family ever since his parents were killed in a drunken driving accident. Tonight, that tradition will come to an end due to adult things like family and career. Isaac is about to become a father; his wife Betsy (Bell, 22 Jump Street) is well into her third trimester. Chris\u2019 career as a professional NFL player is finally taking off; he\u2019s having a great season and is more concerned with his social media image than real life. Basically, they\u2019ve outgrown the tradition. Ethan, on the other hand, has not. He\u2019s still very much into it mainly because he has nothing else in his life. His girlfriend Diana (Kaplan, The Interview) recently dumped him because he was incapable of making a commitment. His music career is a nonstarter. He\u2019s bummed this will be their last hurrah, but is determined to make it go out with a bang rather than a whimper. He comes into possession of three invitations to \u201cThe Nutcracker Ball\u201d, the hottest, most exclusive Christmas Eve party in town.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Naturally, the night doesn\u2019t go off without a hitch or several. Ethan, who\u2019s still in love with Diana, bumps into his ex at a karaoke bar. Chris offers to get weed for his team\u2019s star quarterback (Hill), but keeps getting robbed of it by Rebecca Grinch (Glazer, Broad City) whose name says all you need to know about her attitude towards the holidays. Isaac starts tripping on a mixture of drugs (mushrooms, cocaine, weed, etc.) given to him by Becky as an early Christmas present. She obtained them on Craig\u2019s List proving incontrovertibly that you can buy ANYTHING on-line. It\u2019s a night of misadventure and that\u2019s before they even get to the party.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of my biggest complaints about recent Christmas comedies is that the characters are so unlikable. Everybody in Four Christmases, Deck the Halls and (of course) Christmas with the Kranks got on my damn nerves. I didn\u2019t particularly care for It\u2019s a Wonderful Life, but at least George Bailey wasn\u2019t an arrogant jerk. Rogen and his pals act like overgrown frat boys throughout The Night Before<\/strong> with their antics and petty disagreements, but there\u2019s a real camaraderie there. Yes, they drop the f-bomb A LOT. Yes, one of them has sex with a girl he barely knows in a bar bathroom. Yes, drugs and booze are in abundance. One of the guys even throws up in a church. But underneath all the vulgarity, there\u2019s real heart. It also has Michael Shannon (99 Homes) making a rare comic turn as a dope dealer who turns out to be more than he seems. Think A Christmas Carol with joints instead of ghosts. He\u2019s the real standout in The Night Before<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0On the downside, funny lady Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project) is underused as Diana\u2019s bff. She shines in what few scenes she has. Glazer is hysterical in her few scenes as well. Bell is great as the understanding-to-a-point wife. The three leads have great chemistry. They bring surprising depth and gravitas to their characters. Levitt and Caplan make a nice couple; you really want to see them get back together. Since you like the characters in The Night Before<\/strong>, you also come to care what happens to them. Like I said, as a comedy, it\u2019s hit-or-miss. Luckily, there are slightly more of the former than the latter. It helps that the movie ends on a strong note. Director Jonathan Levine (The Wackness, 50\/50) does a pretty good job with the material even if he doesn\u2019t always strike the right comic balance. Still, it has enough good points to make it worth seeing.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Night Before (2015)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (drug use and language throughout, some strong sexual content, graphic nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jonathan Levine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jonathan Levine, Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir and Evan Goldberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marco Beltrami and Miles Hankins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Brandon Trost\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 20, 2015 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anthony […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-holiday-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Night-Before-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10364"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10378,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions\/10378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}