Rough Night

I love TV show Broad City and was looking forward to this because two of the creatives behind that show paired up to give us Rough Night. The generic title (a switch from Move that Body which was much more suitable) should have warned me. Rough Night is forgettable and not really that funny.

The movie starts out in 2006 where a group of 4 friends get drunk at Halloween, win a beer pong competition and vow to stay friends forever. Fast forward 10 years and the group is reuniting for Jess's (Scarlett Johansson, bland, bland, bland, comedy is NOT her forte) bachelorette weekend at a fancy house in Miami. They party, snort coke, are joined with Jess's Australian friend Pippa (Kate McKinnon in a role that MUST have been written for Rebel Wilson. Surely?). Her friends decide to get Jess a stripper and here is when things go wrong: high on coke they accidentally end up killing the stripper and things quickly spiral out of control as they first try to do the responsible thing of calling the police and then move on to hiding the body.

There was minor protests before the film being released about the movie making a punchline of killing sex workers but the film could have overcome this and he gruesome premise if not for a few things. First of all the women lack friendship chemistry. I don't believe any of these women were ever friends even if a big part of it is that they are supposed to have drifted apart. Second the casting is all awful. Scarlett is not a comedy actress and neither is Zoe Kravitz and it shows. Without being backed up by her hilariously crafted Broad City alter ego Ilana Glazer comes across as simply annoying. Kate McKinnon and Jillian Bell are probably the best with their characters but neither one is given much to do. McKinnon just leans hard into her accent and Bell is saddled with a "loser desperate friend who can't take a hint". The third thing is that the movie never quite finds it's tone. It struggles between "woke" dialogue for characters who are actually just mean and instead of simply leaning into the fact that these women are awful and allowing them to get even more absurdly awful it's way too protective of the characters and keeps trying to redeem them by making them "nice" people. It's both incredibly boring and keeps the movie from really flying.

Still, Rough Night isn't a total write off. There are enough funny lines and a subplot (involving Jess's fiancé who the movie allows to get into REALLY ridiculous shenanigans) to be watchable. Just wish that the script would have let the ladies turn loose too.

There are loads of negative reviews on this film so I'm here to give a slightly more positive one.

I enjoyed this film. I thought it was funny, entertaining, and the plot was not too predictable. Also, the acting was very impressive.

I watched this on a saturday night, and it made my evening very enjoyable. It's not supposed to be an intellectually challenging film, it's supposed to make you laugh. And it made me laugh a lot. The jokes were well played out, and the main characters were phenomenally acted, and sure- some of the jokes were immature and childish but that was part of the charm of this movie.

Based off of all of the other reviews I had read before watching I was expecting a really mundane film and it wasn't. The plot line was interesting, and even though there were one or two serious scenes I was still very much hooked on what was going on.

This film made me properly laugh out loud, and I really did enjoy it. Sure it wasn't incredible cinematography, and it didn't leave me thinking about the meaning of existence like many of Johanssons more notable films, but it was very enjoyable, and I would watch it again with friends. In fact, this film for me was even with how much I enjoyed bridesmaids, and maybe it's because I love Kate McKinnon and Scarlett Johansson, but I still think that despite the negative reviews this film deserves more love as the laid back comedy it is.

I watched this without looking at any reviews and actually really enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect but was still fun and entertaining and I did actually laugh out loud a good few times and felt good after watching it! Then I went on here to check out the reviews out of curiosity and they were terrible which would have made me not watch it! But I just wanted to say I did actually like it as a good fun girly movie!

Jess Thayer (Scarlett Johansson), Alice (Jillian Bell), Blair (Zoë Kravitz), and Frankie (Ilana Glazer) are best friends since college. They are going on a bachelorette vacation in Miami. Jess is getting married and running for state senate. They are joined by Jess's Australian friend Pippa (Kate McKinnon) whom the other girls have never met. Jess reluctantly does cocaine with her girls and it only goes downhill after the dead male stripper.

It's a relatively bland comedy until the dead stripper. Then it becomes tonally challenged. It's not dark enough. It's definitely not funny enough. Every passable joke is outnumbered by ones that go flat. The guys are duds and Peter doesn't need this much screen time. The girls should do better than this. There are some funny bits but not everyone is playing at max level.

This review Rough Night is spoiler free

*** (3/5)

IN 2011 THE box-office smashing Oscar nominated adult comedy Bridesmaids cemented down a shiny new pathway for some seriously funny ladies to take over comedy, and for years after women have proved that they too can hit all the right marks with hilarious dialogue, a crude attitude and naughty behaviour which normally make a hit in male lead comedies.

In writer-director Lucia Aniello's directorial debut Rough Night, seriously funny ladies lead a slew of penis jokes, nasty consequences, crude behaviour and a misjudged killing of a male stripper. When a group of friends reunite after ten years for a bachelorette party in Miami. There's Scarlett Johansson's Jess who is the bride to be, then there's Alice (Bell) she's the rudest of the group, next is Blair (Kravitz) who just joins in for the ride, fourth is Frankie (Glazer) who is the dopest of the group and finally there's Kate McKinnon's Pippa who's Jess' new friend from Australia. Its big name cast who give the film it's nails from their hilarious quips for which McKinnon is the standout through their party attitude to their consequences and it's here when the film shines. The group hire a male stripper, which bodes well for them for a while but when the worst happens they're brought closer together when it matters most.

It's rude, beyond the constant penis jokes rude; it's rude in its shock tactics too these aren't just the quick and cheap shocks that lead other comedies, here they're carefully planned which gives this a polish, there's a penis gift bag, a BDSM room and there's a hilarious section with a jet ski. It's relentlessly funny in these moments which thrive thanks to Aniello's and Paul W. Downs' top notch screenplay. Sadly it's a typically flawed venture for these women, as it suffers in its characterization there are only a few lines of story between them, though each of them have problems, Jess is struggling to make senate, Blair is in a custody battle, then there's Alice who always feels betrayed.

Rough Night isn't always funny either as there are a few jokes or shock tactics that fail to go beyond the planning. In addition it falls under a repetition strike too as some of the more shocking gimmicks play déjà vu particularly a body cover up sequence. However, despite this sudden drop this is still a still a seriously funny adult comedy which has carefully planned consequences and a funny big name cast.

VERDICT: A seriously funny comedy led by some hilarious ladies who handle self-consciously naughty set-pieces with a flawed yet polished flare.