Rough Night

27 Replies

Rought Night is a rough watch. It’s aiming for somewhere between Bridesmaids and The Hangover, but winds up just a shade north of unwatchable. The cast is nimble enough (though I have no love to spare for Scarlett Johansson), but the script treats them abominably.

The premise, as you might have deduced from a trailer that’s not doing it any favours: ScarJo is getting married, and her friends treat her to a bachelorette party in Miami. But MV5BMjI4ODU0MTM3N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjgzMzA2MjI@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1404,1000_AL_the fun gets spoiled when the stripper gets accidentally murdered, and the hen party suddenly has to hide the dead rooster. The situation is wildly implausible and uncomfortably phony. Some have complained that the script focuses more on comedy than on story, and while I agree that story was largely absent, so were the jokes. I don’t think I laughed once, and I love me some Kate McKinnon.

The thing is, the film tries to do this interesting gender swap, where the ladies are at some wild, drunken weekend of debauchery and the bachelor party is having a sweet and sensitive wine tasting, chaste and polite. And the poor groom is left behind, wondering if his honey is cheating on him, stressing about unreturned phone calls and unrequited love. But in actuality, all it really means is that both the plot and the subplot are disturbingly trite, pathetic, and thoughtless. Basically, it’s twice the suck. Suck squared. And my life just doesn’t need that much disappointment, ya know?

It’s not much of a feminist comedy if only 2 of the 5 main characters matter. It’s not much of a comedy period if the 2 characters who do matter are one-dimensional at best, and there aren’t enough laughs to make these cardboard cutouts any thicker. I didn’t have the time of day for this movie. I mean, it literally stole 101 minutes from me, and left a big empty hole where some belly laughs belonged.

27 thoughts on “Rough Night”

    1. Jay Post author

      Yeah that’s the thing, trailers are so unafraid to lie these days and paint this whole other picture of what the movie’s about…if they can’t even make the trailer look decent, if they can’t even find 30 seconds worth of good film, well, that’s probably all we need to know.

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  14. reocochran

    Too bad the women couldn’t figure out this script was a big mess, Jay!

    I love fun in movies, with Goldie Hawn with Amy Schumer in “Snatched” movie redeeming itself a few times. The “Trainwreck” movie was original and hilarious. The movie, “Spies,” was highly intelligent humor. It is possible!!

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  17. Susan Leighton

    I will skip this one, Jay. After seeing the trailer, I got the sense, like you that this film desperately wanted to be Bridesmaids. Now, after reading your review, it sounds like it turned south and detoured into Very Bad Things. Not good. Not good at all. Terrific review and very funny!

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  18. screenzealots

    Great review and I 100% agree. This movie is so god-awful and it had such potential. The stuff with the diaper was the low point for me. (I also stayed in my screening because it was raining and I didn’t have an umbrella — weird).

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