The Night Before (2015) *

Directed by:  Jonathan Levine

Starring:  Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie, Jillian Bell, Lizzy Caplan, Mindy Kaling, Michael Shannon

I blame myself.     I know Seth Rogen's (and his various buddies) MO by now.     Weed, drugs, bodily fluids galore, and homoerotic jokes rule the day.     He has been recycling this for a decade now.    It is past tired.    It is sheer laziness.     Sure, other actors star in these Rogen movies, but he is the common thread and serves as producer here.    Yet, I rented it somehow expecting something fresh or original.   I am the epitome of the definition of insanity, "Keep trying the same thing and expecting different results."   I hope one day soon he grows up and challenges himself.     He was effective in Steve Jobs and he didn't have to smoke a single blunt.  

Until Rogen finds himself, he will continue to drag himself and his friends down in lame comedies like this one.     No matter how he repackages the plot, the themes are the same and we will not be surprised when a.) characters spend half of the movie stoned  b.) a bodily fluid shows up where it shouldn't   c.) Rogen will flirt with the idea of performing a gay act with another male character or d.) he simulates gay vibes under the guise of "it's all a joke".     None of this is funny.    Never was.    Especially the fifth or sixth time around.     

Rogen, Gordon-Levitt, and Mackie play longtime friends who meet every Christmas Eve for a night of partying, karaoke singing "Christmas in Hollis", and visiting the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.     This year's will be the last.     Isaac (Rogen) is soon to become a father, while Chris (Mackie) is coming into his own as a pro football star.    Ethan (Gordon-Levitt) is stuck in a rut and recently broke up with his girlfriend because he refused to meet her parents.     The clock is ticking on the trio's party days, so they promise this last bash which will end up at the fabled "Nutcracker's Ball".    More on that later.    

Isaac is given a Christmas Eve gift of a box of drugs by his pregnant wife (Bell) for the group to party with.     She runs into Isaac later while he is so stoned he thinks a nativity scene is really talking to him.     She is not happy that he is fucked up while they attend midnight mass, but what did she expect?     She gave him the drugs!!!    Another subplot involves the guys buying weed from a far-out high school janitor (Shannon), who seems omnipresent and omnipotent.      It is an interesting performance and the best thing in the movie.     Shannon takes chances and we wish his cast mates would follow suit.

But, alas, they don't.    The movie is a "wacky adventure" in which the guys run into one hairy situation after another.     Most of these could have been avoided, but I suppose if they weren't then there would not have been a movie.     Fine by me.     The movie runs slightly over 90 minutes, but boy does it drag.     Roger Ebert wrote often that you know a movie is bad when you find yourself checking your watch a lot and then you check it again because you think it stopped.     The Night Before is that type of movie.

Back to the Nutcracker's Ball party.    There is nothing special about it.    People dance, drink, do drugs, and hook up.    It is no different than a garden variety movie nightclub.    James Franco and Miley Cyrus show up in cameos which don't do much to enhance their Q ratings.     Franco and Rogen flirt with each other and nearly hook up.    I will never understand how this is funny.    This is a common theme in Rogen films.    Does he think the idea of homosexual tendencies is funny in and of itself?    There is no joke or point of view.    Does Rogen think he is somehow pushing the envelope with this?     Or being a wild and crazy guy?     There is also a scene after Rogen snorts coke; his nose bleeds and a drop of "cocaine blood" drips into a friend's drink.     How can it be funny when our repulsion overrides anything else about the situation?   

The Night Before is a tiresome enterprise that also tries to get all gooey at the end.     Everyone parties, but hey we also learned something too.   There is also some phony Christmas cheer thrown in.    Give me a break.    Comedies involving partying seem to think that a character smoking weed or snorting lines is funny all by itself.     These are movie drug users who don't become addicted or ruin their lives.     They can seemingly confine their use to one night, while remain straight for the remaining 364 days of the year.    Cheech & Chong covered this ground decades ago, but they were funny because they allowed themselves to be the butt of the joke.     It was satire and it was fresher then.   Most of their better jokes occurred when they weren't high anyway.