Rough Night, Movie Review

"Director Lucia Aniello gets the party started off right, but the longer it goes, the more the buzzkill beats you down." -Brandon Vick on Rough Night

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Girls getting raunchy and rowdy has been done before, but not nearly enough. To avoid confusion, I only speak in terms of movies here. Bridesmaids is the most legendary, and may always be the one to beat. After Rough Night, Kristen Wiig and the gang have nothing to worry about for now. Director Lucia Aniello gets the party started off right, but the longer it goes, the more the buzzkill beats you down.

Some fantastic funny females keep this clusterfuck comedy from crashing and burning once it goes off the deep end. And, without question, it will and does. Scarlett Johansson plays Jess, a wannabe politician who’s too busy for her fiancée Peter (Paul W. Downs). Speaking of Peter, almost every scene he’s in should be on the cutting room floor. I don’t want to see an insecure twit in an adult diaper road-tripping it to make sure his fiancee still loves him. If only I could have convinced Aniello to make Jess single.

Anyways, Alice (Jillian Bell) is a teacher with a potty mouth who cherishes her friendship with Jess with suffocating consequences. Frankie (Ilana Glazer) and Blair (Zoe Kravitz) used to be a thing, but Frankie became a hippie activist, while Blair is now a mom getting divorced from a fella. They still have the hots for each other though. No one is who they use to be back in college when they were all ride or die together. Those days are long gone. Jess’s bachelorette party may very well be their last hoorah.

This wild, womanly Hangover is crowded with a dead stripper, missing diamonds, and a forlorn, sex-feverish couple jumping for the chance to have another bed mate. Problem is, none of it adds up to any funny or outrageous moments that Rough Night wants to be remembered for. Attempting to hide a half-naked dead dude and focusing on friendships are the highlight of the raucous story; but like the characters themselves, it’s all too sloppy to give a damn about.

The movie comes off cheap, yet there’s quality in the cast. The women spout off their quick quips with absolute no remorse. Now that’s the shit we came to see! Bell is the most delectable delinquent of the entire squad, and her heart is always in the right place, even if her pals feel like upper-cutting one or both of her boobs. Not violently, just out of frustration. We’ve all been there before, right? Bell is greedy for the laughs and a great effort is taken to have them all to herself because McKinnon goes for it in every scene she’s in. The comedy is cutthroat when they are around.

A personal shout out to the songs in this as well. There are some hits that haven’t been played on the big screen in a long time or never. Any time a superbly scampish cast can shake their hips to Divinyls or Khia, it’s going to be a good time. Too bad it doesn’t last in a Rough Night.

Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.

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