With their previous movies, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have set the bar so low for themselves — if not film comedy in general — that all Best Night Ever had to do to emerge as their personal best was this: Tell one good joke. One.
Guess what? They succeeded! Good job, guys!
Actually, Best Night Ever turns out to have several good jokes up its sleeveless dress — so many that, unlike the team’s odious others (Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Vampires Suck, et al.), this romp can be viewed all the way through. It’s far better than suggested by its Ed Wood-ian IMDb score, whose votes I suspect were cast by vindictive viewers going off reputation and track record alone. I get it, but I don’t condone it. Maybe it helps that, for their first time in seven at-bats as co-directors and co-writers, the guys decided not to do a spoof, but something original. Well, take the word “original” with a gram of cocaine, because Best Night Ever is, after all, little more than a female version of The Hangover without the amnesia.
Economically built as a found-footage film, it chronicles one kuh-razy evening — and subsequent morning — in the life of bride-to-be Claire (Desiree Hall, Donner Pass) and three friends at her bachelorette party in Vegas. Of course their shindig starts on a shitty note and goes downhill from there; that’s the whole point. There’s hardly a story to be told there, but plenty of obstacles to send the ladies shrieking in horror from one raunchy setup to the next: fire, robbery, dildo chainsaw …
Don’t get me wrong: Best Night Ever is deserving of attention, not praise. With mostly grounded performances by the four game leads — two of whom I was ready to marry by the end — and more bases stolen than expected, it feels nothing like a Friedberg/Seltzer joint and everything like the first two episodes of a decent sitcom: mindless, certainly, but mindless fun. —Rod Lott