One star. Rated R, for raunch, profanity, crude sexual content, drug use and violence
By Derrick Bang
Well, this one lived down to
lowest expectations.
And then some.
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| The calm before the storm: Jess (Scarlet Johansson, center) bubbles during a cheerful call from her fiancé, while her friends — from left, Blair (Zoë Kravitz), Alice (Jillian Bell), Pippa (Kate McKinnon) and Frankie (Ilana Glazer) — try to hasten the chat, so they can continue their debauched evening. |
Director/co-scripter Lucia
Aniello’s unholy mash-up of Bridesmaids
and Weekend at Bernie’s is a ghastly
failure on all levels; it’s a forced and thoroughly tasteless comedy, which
repeatedly attempts to mangle humor from material that never could have seemed
funny on the printed page, let alone on the big screen.
This is a desperation flick ...
as in, every cast member looks desperate at all times, no doubt seeking the
nearest exit.
“Dying is easy,” Peter O’Toole’s
Alan Swann insists, in 1982’s My Favorite
Year, as he quotes an apocryphal Hollywood chestnut. “Comedy is hard.”
The actual attribution remains in
question, but the sentiment is truer now than ever, because far too many of
today’s so-called comedy writers take the lazy way out. As with horror films
that splatter gore on the screen in an effort to conceal their inability to
induce actual terror, Aniello and co-scripter Paul W. Downs clearly believe
that relentless dollops of vulgar, randomly inserted remarks about bodily
functions, along with repeated glimpses of penis-shaped sex toys, represent the
height of humor.
Not. Even. Close.
When an actress of Scarlett
Johnasson’s skill can’t make headway with the steady barrage of clumsy
one-liners that pass for dialog in this film, All Concerned should have
recognized the failings of the source material.
A brief college-days flashback
illuminates the sisterhood bond between Jess (Johansson), Alice (Jillian Bell),
Blair (Zoë Kravitz) and Frankie (Ilana Glazer). A decade later, life and
careers have frayed this connection. Blair has become an immaculately dressed,
high-profile businesswoman; Frankie is a hyper-politicized, save-the-whales
activist; Alice is — by her own definition — a much-loved schoolteacher.
The image-conscious Jess, running
for Congress, is losing ground to an opponent who gains favorable media bumps
for tweeting dick pics (a scenario which, sadly, isn’t far removed from
reality). Jess is engaged to marry nice-guy Peter (also Downs), which gives
micro-managing Alice the perfect excuse for the “ultimate” bachelorette party,
in flesh- and sin-laden Miami.
Much to the displeasure of Alice
— who views herself as Jess’ one and only BFF — the guest list has expanded to
include Australia-based Pippa (Kate McKinnon), who became Jess’ one solid buddy
during her semester of study Down Under. Cue the rise of green-eyed jealousy,
as Alice worries that her “special relationship” with Jess is threatened.
Miami’s home base is an opulent
beach house “borrowed” for the weekend from one of Jess’ colleagues; the first
night out quickly blossoms into a coke- and booze-fueled haze. Once back at the
glass-walled beach chalet, the next bit of merriment arrives in the form of a
male stripper. When Jess recoils from the guy’s uncomfortably aggressive
behavior, Alice willingly jumps in as a substitute.
Literally jumps. One unbalanced chair and
cracked head later, the guy has bled out on the immaculate white floor.
What to do, what to do ... a
perfect storm of confusion that also applies to Aniello and Downs. Efforts to
milk humor from inept attempts to “deal with” the body clash clumsily with (apparently)
serious moments of real-world guilt; the blend makes an already awkward film
even more bewildering. Emotions churn, tempers fray; long-simmering grievances
burst into view.
Frankie, in college Blair’s
deliriously happy other half, resents her former lover’s now-straight
lifestyle; Blair, in turn, ridicules Frankie as a poor little rich girl turned
anti-establishment poseur. Jess
flares over Alice’s clinging-vine possessiveness; Alice skewers Jess for
putting career ahead of friendship.
Pippa takes it all in with wide-eyed
astonishment, amusement and equanimity.
Indeed, McKinnon is this film’s
sole saving grace: a buoyant breath of genuinely funny fresh air, amid a miasma
of limp performances and strained dialog. McKinnon plays an actual person: an absurdly wacky one, to be
sure, but one (thankfully!) who operates at a consistent level of Zen-like
confidence. As an exotic “foreigner,” Pippa is amusing even when silent;
McKinnon makes her more of a hoot via the woman’s left-of-center reaction to
each fresh crisis.
On top of which, McKinnon has
sideways glances and deadpan stares to die for.
Aniello and Downs try much too
hard to give Alice reasons for being the insecure character who tries much too
hard; Bell, in turn, tries much too hard to enhance her thin material. She’s
like the little kid on a playground, screaming for her parents to “Look at me
... look at me ... look at me!”
Nothing works; Bell’s line readings are as flat and contrived as the film into
which Alice has been thrust.
Those of a cynical mind might
assume that Bell in this film’s Melissa McCarthy substitute, in both behavior
and plus-size appearance. If so, Aniello and Downs needed to give Bell much,
much better material.
Johansson, in a similar vein,
never looks like she belongs in this setting. She may have been suitable for
the gentler romantic banter required of Scoop
or We Bought a Zoo, but she’s wholly
unprepared for the aggressive physicality demanded by this sort of film (when
this sort of film works in the first place).
Kravitz and Glazer never rise above
their one-note personalities. Blair is stuck-up and pretentious; Frankie is
arrogant and defensive.
Aniello and Downs are equally
sloppy with their own narrative consistency. One major subplot — Blair’s
custody battle for her son — just sorta vanishes; other little details
apparently hope to escape our notice (like the ease with which the gals clean
up all that blood).
Ironically, Downs (as writer)
gives himself (as actor) some of the film’s few successful bits, starting with
our first glimpse of Peter’s bachelor party, by way of contrasting with the
escalating chaos in which Jess finds herself. The gallant Peter’s subsequent
effort to “save” his fiancée leads to an equally droll sequence at an all-night
gas station. It’s a shame Peter couldn’t have been added to the mix in Miami;
his presence would have been welcome.
Ty Burrell and Demi Moore also
are mildly amusing, as the libidinous couple in the adjacent beach house, who
hope to persuade Blair into a threesome.
I can’t say that Rough Night represents a perfect storm
of missing opportunities, because the opportunities weren’t present to begin
with. At a butt-numbing 101 minutes, it runs much too long, the dialog becoming
more hopeless — and the circumstances more contrived — with each passing half
hour.
Ultimately, the film becomes
deadly dull; while it’s fair to admit that numerous patrons laughed
uproariously during Wednesday evening’s preview screening, it’s equally telling
to note that an equal number endured the experience with stony silence.
Advertising materials for Rough Night trade on Aniello and Downs’
collaborative involvement with TV’s Broad
City, but we must note that they didn’t create it; Glazer and Abbi Jacobson
share that credit. Aniello and Downs are gonna have to work a lot harder, to
achieve that show’s vastly superior marriage of cast and material.
Because Rough Night will be naught but an unpleasant memory by Christmas.
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