Batman Alum: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Did you enjoy Pineapple Express? 50/50? This Is The End? Great. Then you'll enjoy The Night Before, which is pretty much just a patchwork of those other movies dressed up as Saint Nick. The premise is a little sweeter than you might expect from a Seth Rogen-on-drugs based movie, borrowing a bit of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn's sad story from the beginning of Wedding Crashers, where Vaughn sleeps over at Wilson's house every year for his birthday because his parents had died on that day many years ago. The Night Before simply swaps Christmas for a birthday, Gordon-Levitt for Wilson, and Rogen and Anthony Mackie for Vaughn. It's all a very sentimental setup to debauchery, though, which is obviously why most of the people in the theaters bought a ticket. Once the guys start imbibing in adult substances, it's off to the races with a blur of dick jokes and likely improvised weirdness. Still, the depravity has a personality thanks largely to Gordon-Levitt, who turns this into something more than the routine, nondescript immaturity that occupies most Seth Rogen films these days. Yeah, a lot of it is pretty ridiculous. But this is the last hurrah of three very close friends, and those friendships carry the movie triumphantly across the finish line.
