139.
Rough Night
5.5/10
I find it so weird that this movie has come out around the same time as Girls Trip. This time it looked like we were about to watch a gang of girls get 'white girl wasted', but the trailer to this one, didn't make it seem that it would be as bad as Girls Trip. It looked the same, but with a Weekend at Bernie's twist. (If you haven't seen that, save it for a rainy day). What do these two female trip films have in common? Friends being united? CHECK! A weekend away for partying? CHECK! A cast of women who are out to make a quick buck? CHECK! Let's party on!
Scarlett Johansson and her mates are in a party and she, along with her best mate Alice, are winning at beer pong before heading home and promising that they will never lose touch with each other. Yea, good one! Ten years later and Johansson's character, Jess, is running for state senator. Everyone thinks she is too uptight and that she needs to loosen up a little. She is engaged to a guy named Peter and at home, when they are trying to relax, Alice keeps ringing her about setting up the bachelorette trip. This guy seems a real soft touch and is already pissing me off. He drives his future wife to the airport a day later and the gang head to Miami for the party weekend. They meet with Blair, who is a lawyer, heading through a custody battle. Alice is a teacher and Frankie is a jobless activist. Frankie and Blair once had a thing in college and there is clearly a bit on tension between them. If movies like this are still so predictable, these too will end up back together by the end. They land at Miami and Alice pulls out a bottle of champagne and pops is, causing everyone in the airport to scream and panic. Everyone gets this joke but the film needs that it needs to explain it too, just in case. I don't enjoy this obvious need to create humour, by one of the character's dialogue explain it to the viewers.
The finally get to their luxury apartment and have a scope around, finding a room with a sex swing, again, it's obvious that this will play a factor at some point. Before this, they get the key from their neighbours for the weekend. This couple are very sexually active and open to Blair going them. That night, the girls head out for dinner and another of Jess's mates joins them. An Australian called Pippa, making Alice jealous that Jess has a friend that she doesn't know. Pippa is in no competition, but Alice is. Frankie gets her hands on some drugs and before we know it, everyone has their nose in the powder. At the club, the camera seems to shake with the beat and maybe the enhanced heartbeat of the women. Trying their hands at a dance on the floor, until Alice falls after when Jess forgets to catch her because she answers her phone. As for back home, the husband and his friends are having a more relaxed time. They are having a wine tasting and when Jess rings home, he is worried that she is too drunk. He wants her to ring him when she's back at the apartment. Blair suggests that it's time for a stripper back at their place. The continue to do drugs as they wait and finally there's a knock at the door. The guy uses the bathroom before finally reappearing and starting his dance routine. Jess is pretty awkward but Alice figures it's her turn and jumps onto him. The chair falls backward and he smashes his head onto the corner of the fireplace, killing him. The blood spills all over the floor and the girls freak out, leading to an attempt of moving the boy and settling for putting in the sex swing, which I had already mentioned. The husband rigs again and Jess mentions that something went wrong with a stripper and the girls then take her phone off her and break it. They collect everyone's phones, so that no one can talk to anyone and this sends the lads into a panic. The sexes seem to have a role reversal, rather than the usual stereotype that comes with a female around the time of a wedding. They are in a panic that there won't be a wedding, that their suits will have to go back and his friends convince him to drive down to Miami to win her back. He stops at a store for adult diapers and energy drinks in a cringe worthy scene.
The ladies carry on trying to hide the body, but each time, they nearly get caught by a neighbour. They contemplate chopping up the body but settle on taking it out on a jetski and dumping it in the water. Pippa takes the lead, as she is the one to have driven one before. Riding off, and crashing back onto the beach, they realise that the sexual neighbours have a security camera. The only way to get the tape, obviously, is by sending Blair in to seduce them. She asks them for sex outside on the beach, thinking that she can ask for the footage later. After a sex scene, that is off camera, she asks for the video, only to find out that the camera doesn't actually work anyway. After cleaning up the blood on the living room floor, they think they are safe. By now, the husband Peter, has made it to a petrol station but is high on Russian speed pills and gets pulled over by a cop. After clearly showing that he isn't drunk, but clearly a little bit insane, he's let go with a ticket. Making it to a petrol station, but his car being declined, he makes money from two weird guys that he sets up to have sex and exchange drugs with each other.
The girls head out to the beach for a photo together but in the background, you can clearly see the body of the stripper. They put him back onto the sex swing and head back inside to someone else at the door. It's a cop and as he holds Frankie up against the wall, she headbutts him, knocking him clean out. The girls try to pick him up and accidentally rip his clothes off, meaning that his guy is the real stripper. They put him on a bed upstairs and head back down to have the usual argument that comes with this kind of comedy. Jess heads upstairs to get away from the situation after the girls reveals that there was a bridal shower and Alice wasn't invited. She is calming down in the bathroom, as yet another knock reveals two guys, claiming to be detectives and looking for Jay, the fake stripper. Alice answers and admits that the guy is dead. After showing the body, the men claim that he was highly dangerous and it was self-defence, so the girls celebrate that they are finally safe. As they are sitting in the living room, Pippa notices all three of the men on TV, as the news warns about diamond thieves. Before she can alert the others, the men hear the TV and hold the girls hostage, plus Scotty he real stripper, who has now woken up. Jess finds a card in the bathroom, from Alice, who explains how much Jess means to her. She hears the commotion and heads to the balcony to investigate. They are looking for the diamonds and I remember Jay heading to the toilet when he first arrived. He must have hidden them in there. One of the guys heads upstairs and is countered by Jess, with some hairspray, who forces him to handcuff himself to the sink. She heads downstairs and aims the gun at the other criminal, who won't keep still. Instead she leaps off the balcony and tackles him, wrestling on the floor and fighting for the gun, before Alice breaks free, gets the gun and shoots him in the leg. Jess finishes him off with a statue to the head and goes to free the gang properly. The other guy from upstairs has freed himself and is aiming at the girls, ready to pull the trigger. Flying through the door and surrounding windows, Peter drives his car into the criminal, killing him but still with the mindset that his fiancé has cheated on him. They sort it out between themselves, so finally, it's onto the wedding the next day. They have moved it forward and have it at a foam party that the girls already had tickets for. Everyone is finally getting along and even Alice has hooked up with the stripper. The story of the girls tackling some thieves has made it back home and put Jess ahead in the polls for being the state senator. She is asked to come back and work but finally she puts her friends first. The film ends with some after credits of the girls back to their normal day to day chores. Alice finally finds the diamonds and they were in the box of penis shaped pasta all along.
All in all, this film was pretty average. Between the fact that it was so predictable, the need for each character to explain the humour, every time it was present and the cringe worthy scenes involving the men, I'm glad that the film wasn't any longer than it needed to be. It did produce a giggle from time to time but overall, it was just like any other female comedy. It's hard to think why Scarlett Johansson decided on taking this role, when clearly, she is now onto bigger and better things. This seemed like it could have been taken on by someone with a little less stardom and still have been the same movie. For continuity, would someone running for office really take time out to go and party so close to an election?
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