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The Night Before: Mini-review

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Seth Rogen

Seth Rogen reflects on his drug trip in The Night Before

B-Moviegoers this holiday season have already had the opportunity to see the umpteenth version of the prototypical Christmas get-together film, Love the Coopers. Now, they get to see a most non-prototypical Christmas get-together movie, The Night Before, a film that has far more Seth Rogen than jolly St. Nick.

Rogen plays Isaac, who along with best buds Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) meet every Christmas Eve and visit the same places they did since they were teenagers. This year will be their last go-around, since Isaac’s wife Betsy (Jillian Bell) is expecting her first child and Chris’s NFL career is taking up too much of their time. But Ethan gets tickets to the best Christmas Eve party of all time, the legendary Nutcracker Ball, and the three friends plan to end their evening there. Of course, they run into numerous detours along the way.

Director Jonathan Levine and a host of writers, including Rogen’s comedy partner Evan Goldberg try to blend Rogen’s usual crudities with a sentimental Christmas movie and mostly succeed. Much of the crudity comes from an early Christmas present Betsy gives Isaac, a box filled with seemingly every drug known to man. When the drug jokes work, as when Isaac imagines the statues in a manger scene talking to him, The Night Before is hilarious. But Levine hasn’t mastered the art of keeping cutups like Rogen and James Franco (who plays himself in a cameo) under control, so some of the crudity simply falls flat and, worse, keeps going on anyway. Yet once the audience gets past the sex and drug jokes, The Night Before is, at heart, an often sweet bromance about three 30-something manchildren who finally realize they need to act like adults. Isaac has his fatherhood issues, Chris needs to address his steroid use and the impending end of his pro career, and Ethan must get over his fear of commitment that sabotaged his relationship with Diana (Lizzy Caplan), his ideal woman. Along the way, the guys do get some guidance from a most unlikely source, a scene-stealing drug dealer from their youth, played by Michael Shannon. The film’s attempts to mix raucous humor and the gentler moments don’t always work, but, with the help of a solid ensemble cast, The Night Before  winds up being a pleasant holiday surprise. 
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The Walk: Mini-review

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Gordon-Levitt could use some help with his French accent

B+On August 7, 1974, the day Richard Nixon resigned as the U.S. President, a French aerialist named Philippe Petit actually  upstaged Nixon by spending 45 minutes walking back and forth on a high wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, some 1,350 feet above the ground. It took four decades for cinematic technology to develop to the stage where a filmmaker could do this feat justice. Finally, director Robert Zemeckis‘ The Walk can give viewers some idea of what Petit experienced.

The Walk follows Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) from his days as a Paris street performer through high wire training with the patriarch of a European circus family, Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), to Petit’s lengthy preparation for what he called le coup. Petit and a handful of accomplices, including girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon), plan the operation as if it were an elaborate heist. Fortunately, one of the towers was still under construction, making building access easier. Still, Petit and his friends Eventually, they have to dodge security guards and race against time to finish rigging the line before workmen arrive.

First and foremost, the best reason to see The Walk is for the spectacular high wire sequence, which lasts nearly 20 minutes (about half the time of the actual walk). Robert Zemeckis has pulled off amazing technical feats his entire career, but the high wire sequence may be his most astounding set piece ever. The Walk is the rare movie that practically cries out to be seen in 3D, and on as big a screen as possible. In the right theater, some audience members may experience vertigo themselves. The film’s earthbound scenes are a mixed bag, though. Petit’s efforts to install the cable may seem a Hollywood invention, but nearly everything portrayed actually occurred, and The Walk has its share of nail-biting moments before Petit leaves steps off the tower. The movie’s biographical scenes aren’t nearly as good. Gordon-Levitt’s French accent seems as bad as Inspector Clouseau’s, but he makes up for it in boyish exuberance. Still, the movie never quite takes flight until Petit arrives at his destination. As a biography, The Walk is only so-so, but as a caper thriller, it begins to take flight, and when Petit actually steps into the void, the movie is soaring right beside him.
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