Review: Best Night Ever

By Kip Mooney • On • In Reviews Reviews 0

Score:D-

Director:Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer

Cast:Desiree Hall, Samantha Colburn, Eddie Ritchard, Crista Flanagan

Running Time:90.00

Rated:R

The best thing that can be said about Best Night Ever, the latest cinematic atrocity from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, is that it's one of their horrendous spoofs like Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans. Still, the film finds plenty of time to deliberately rip-off Spring Breakers, Bridesmaids and last year's worst movie Project X. It even lifts a scene almost verbatim from Sex and the City.

Essentially an all-female version of The Hangover, Best Night Ever takes the most tired format out there"”the found footage concept"”and then beats you over the head with gross-out gags that have been repeated ad infinitum over the last decade, then sets it to a grating dubstep soundtrack.

It would be OK for Best Night Ever to be unoriginal if it were funny in the slightest, but it's not. In comedy, you'd better be at least one or the other. Being neither sets you up for a painful experience. And boy, is it painful. Though the official running time is 90 minutes, the version I saw is barely 80, and it feels like an eternity.

Desiree Hall plays Claire, the straight-laced bride-to-be. Samantha Colburn looks down her nose as her uppity, wealthy sister. Eddie Ritchard tries to score drugs as the party girl and Crista Flangagan"”the most gifted comedienne in the bunch"” sticks out as the "wild card" of the group. They drove to Las Vegas for Claire's bachelorette party, which of course starts out tame and then everyone gets talked into doing something "crazy."

After Claire's fiancé butt-dials her and overhears him dancing with strippers, the clichés start and never stop as she tries to "keep up" with his alleged night of debauchery. There are plenty of strippers, drug use, violence and lots of jokes that fall flat. Much of what passes for humor is hearing beautiful women say inappropriate things. How insulting to us.

I did happen to chuckle twice in this movie, which spares it from an F. The film also didn't go exactly where I expected it to after a scene where the future bride meets a good-looking guy who buys her a drink. But that's about it. This is an absolutely dreadful film, yet another cinematic stain caused by this duo, who should have been banned from Hollywood long ago.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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