Grade: C

Throughout its marketing run, ‘Rough Night’ was compared to the late 90’s dark comedy ‘Very Bad Things’, which had the same concept about a bachelor (or in this case, bachelorette) party gone wrong. I have never watched the Peter Berg film, but know and understand why so many people are making comparisons. It even had elements of ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ (a comedy about pretending a dead guy was still alive) for good measure. With its marketing, ‘Rough Night’ has also been compared to raunchy comedies, such as, ‘The Hangover’ and ‘Bridesmaids’. (Which, if you do the math, you get an unrelated trilogy of booze and semi gross-out humor.) However, the reception upon ‘Rough Night’s release has been mixed; add to the disappointing box-office returns over the weekend, and you are none the wiser. From day one, it seemed that this female-led comedy was doomed to fail. Surprisingly, it’s not as terrible as most would think.
‘Rough Night’ – written by Paul W. Downs (who plays in this movie as Scarlett Johansson’s character’s fiance) and Lucia Aniello (who also directs this R-rated comedy) of ‘Broad City’ – is a comedy that plays as either hit or miss, proving the argument that this particular genre is “subjective”, as many would say about film in general. You’re either going to laugh your ass off at each and every penis joke that gets uttered by these ladies, or you will cringe over the sight of Johansson and friends attempting to get rid of a male stripper’s recently deceased body, with images of a bloody mess to add injury to insult. (Don’t worry, this is not a spoiler! It is part of ‘Rough Night’s concept.) I honestly found ‘Rough Night’ to be fun when it needed to be, despite not being what is expected.
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