The night Before reunites director Jonathan Levine with his 50/50 crew, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, in a chaotic and raunchy comedy that takes place over one Christmas Eve in New York City. As Rogen's involvement would suggest, The Night Before is light on character development but relentless in its enthusiasm for making us laugh.
Anthony Mackie joins Gordon-Levitt and Rogen as three friends since childhood. More than a decade earlier Ethan's (Gordon-Levitt) parents had died in a car crash, with Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Mackie) cheering him up on Christmas Eve by putting on terrible Christmas sweaters and taking him out for a night of drinking, karaoke and Chinese food.
It's a tradition that's lasted 14 years, but they've agreed it's time to move on and grow up. Isaac is about to become a father, and is terrified about it, Chris has become a famous sports star - thanks to steroids, and Ethan pines for an ex-girlfriend, is a waiter and a musician who doesn't like playing in front of people.
As they prepare for their final Christmas Eve together, Isaac launches into a box of drugs and Ethan steals three tickets to the biggest party of the night, the exclusive Nutcracka Ball. It's not the first time Rogen has played a drug-taking man-child, but all that practice has paid off - he's on fire, delivering laugh after laugh as Gordon-Levitt and Mackie struggle to keep up.
Watching these nitwits work out their issues and fumble their way through their evening is good fun, even when it gets gross. Levine does a great job keeping the characters in check - they make terrible decisions and teeter on being obnoxious, but for the most part they're easy to like and avoid being mean-spirited.
