Rough Night: Movie Review

It’s been nearly two decades since Peter Berg’s “Very Bad Things” was released.  In that film, a group of friends accidently killed a prostitute during a bachelor party.  In Lucia Aniello’s “Rough Night”, the genders are reversed and a male stripper is accidentally killed during a bachelorette party.  Although the premise is the same, the former film went the mean-spirited dark comedy route and “Rough Night” went the stupid comedy route, minus any kind of spirit.  Both feature impressive casts, but neither film is any good.  I guess accidentally killing strippers or prostitutes isn’t as funny as one might expect.

Set in Miami (but not filmed here), a group of college friends get together to celebrate one of them getting hitched. Jess (Scarlett Johansson) is the bride-to-be and her friend Alice (Jillian Bell) wants to make sure they have the best weekend ever.  Jess’s friend’s Blair (Zoë Kravitz), Frankie (Ilana Glazer), and Pippa (Kate McKinnon) are all ready to get their party on. However, things take a turn for the worse when Alice accidentally kills a male stripper. From that point on the woman make one bad decision after another, starting with moving the body multiple times.

Everything that happens in “Rough Night” is in very poor taste and that would be ok if it actually made me laugh.  Ty Burrell and Demi Moore look embarrassed playing a swinger couple living next door to the party.  The only scenes that I found remotely amusing were when the film would shift to Jess’s fiancé (Paul W. Downs) and his friends having a causal and tasteful bachelor party. Wine Tasting was their version of partying hard, while Jess and her friends committed multiple crimes while snorting cocaine.

One good way to avoid having a rough night is to avoid seeing “Rough Night”.

By: Marc Ferman