London

A coked-up drunk dude with great abs finds out that his ex-girlfriend is moving cross-country the following morning and that a “farewell party” is set for her that evening. He crashes the party with another coked-up drunk friend, and proceeds to the upstairs bathroom in which…you guessed it, they drink a lot and do a lot of blow! Oh, they also discuss life and chicks (and how much they suck sometimes), while babes walk in and out and do coke and drinks with them. Oh, and the ex-girlfriend is Jessica Biel. Tough life.

This is a weird film to review since about halfway through it, I was thinking “Fuck this guy, fuck this girl and fuck this cocaine movie in the ass!”, but something happened on my way to its 90-minute finish mark: I actually started to give half a shit about the lead character, played with gumption by Johnny Storm, and even more importantly, I actually started to relate to the dude! This is a movie about break-ups and how people deal with them. If you’ve gone through a break-up yourself, one that hurt you like a motherfucker, or better yet, you’re going through something of the sort right now, check this film out and relate to many of the pains described by some of the chumps in here – think SWINGERS, but only the Jon Favreau parts and none of the laughs. The movie is far from perfect though as it takes way too much time to establish a rapport with the audience, preferring to showcase many of its characters snorting cocaine instead. In fact, at some point, Biel’s character shouts at Evans: “You’re ten times more annoying than I am!” and you’re like “You know what…you’re both fuckin’ annoying, how about them apples?!”. But I guess that’s love sometimes.

The filmmaker also decides that there will be no bad looking people in his movie and proceeds to catwalk a handful of hotties across the big screen for anyone looking for eye-candy (comedian Dane Cook also provides a few funny one-liners). So even though I was uninterested in most of what the film had to offer during its first half hour or so, I was glad to see all those hotties strutting about, so that I could, at the very least, fantasize about them in the meantime (and that includes Chris Evans and the great Jason Statham, with hair!). If “talking head” flicks bore you though, or you really can’t get into people who are stoned and drunk and rambling on about life, religion and love, you should definitely avoid this movie, as it’s basically set in one room the entire time, with Evans whining about what went wrong with his ex-girlfriend (you never told her you “loved her”, dude), while at the same time, drowning himself in nose-candy. I personally haven’t seen this much cocaine since the last time I partied with Ben Affleck (in my dreams). To further the “interest” factor in the film, we also get some half-assed flashbacks to the relationship between Evans and Biel, many of which feature the latter half-clad and looking sumptuous. Now I don’t know about your past relationships, but I went out with this honey-bunny for about 3 ½ years and I don’t remember EVER having one conversation with her…in a friggin’ changing room!!

That’s right, picture Biel in black undies and bra discussing another guy with her overly jealous boyfriend. Nice! Oh, and here’s a note to the filmmaker: if you’re going to show us flashbacks of this seemingly “great” relationship that we, as an audience, are supposed to root for…how about showing us some HAPPY moments between the couple as well?! End of note. In a lot of ways, this film reminded me of my own immature days, when I used to go out and indiscriminately drink with my buddies (read: Arrow), while one of my buddies would get out of line (read: Arrow) and the night would ultimately turn into a rambling session about how chicks suck. All that said, the film does ultimately attain some level of entertainment, particularly when Statham loses it and you actually start looking forward to the “confrontation” between Evans and Biel. Also, that cute girl from WEDDING CRASHERS (Isla Fisher) shows up every now and again…acting cute. In the end though, this is the Chris Evans show and seeing as I dig the guy and his performance in this film, I would slightly recommend it to anyone who feels the same way, particularly if you don’t mind watching people who are better looking than you coking up for 90 minutes or if you’re in the middle of a painful break-up yourself. Or better yet, if you’re high as a kite or drunk as a skunk. Or…all of the above! Oh, the film’s title sucks though.Hunter Richards

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian