I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (2009)
Movie review
From Time Out New York
An Internet sensation since 2002, blogger and self-professed asshole Tucker Max has built a cottage industry documenting his drunken sexual conquests with women he has slightly less contempt for than those who don’t succumb to his charms. With a dose of faux self-loathing and technicolorful epithets for the opposite sex, Max masks his misogyny by claiming he’s a feminist, arguing that women have as much a right to screw whomever they choose. Hating him is part of the shtick, naturally, and his clever critic-proofing isn’t lost on the producers of this painfully unfunny adaptation of Max’s online missives.
Beginning with the stalest of premises—three buds and a bachelor party—director Bob Gosse attempts to cash in on the vulgar bromance craze. But whereas the calculated narcissism of Tucker’s onscreen alter ego (Czuchry) is an effective tool on his inebriated targets, such bad behavior will tax your tolerance level after five minutes. When the movie adds two sidekicks (Bradford, Stults) as comic-relief foils to Tucker’s shenanigans, the toxicity simply triples. Worse, an attempt at redeeming itself with an all-it-takes-is-an-apology scene (noticeably absent from Max’s prose) leaves behind an even fouler stench than the film’s big fecal comic set piece.
Author: Andrew Grant
Time Out New York Issue 730: September 24-30, 2009
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