Courtesy of Freestyle Releasing
Jesse Bradford, center, plays Tucker's misogynist friend.
How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
"I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell," sex-crazy asshole blogger Tucker Max's raunchy memoir, is a mainstay on the bookshelves of frat boys: The book's explicit anecdotes recount sexcapades both wondrous and horrifying to straight males everywhere. It's kind of like "Sex and the City" for men, except with more filth and less fashion.
The film adaptation of "Beer" fulfills its intended goals, low as they are. It's a generic sex comedy for the 18-to-25 demographic with a lot of puerile humor. There's a plot, however bare and unimportant it may be, and there are characters — though you've seen them more than once in other, better movies. Horny Tucker (Matt Czuchry) and his two friends, Drew the misogynist (Jesse Bradford) and Dan (Geoff Stults) the average Joe, go to Salem, Mass., to get laid before Dan gets married the following day.
Audiences familiar with the book know what to expect from the movie: a lot of sex, sexism, alcohol and middle school humor. For those not in the know, it's probably best to just stay away altogether.
Certain compromises were made in translating book to film, perhaps in order to maintain an R rating or maybe just as a way to attract a larger audience. For one, there really isn't a lot of actual nudity or sex in the film. Generally speaking, this would be irrelevant, but considering the source material, the film is almost shockingly tame. And somehow, by the end of the film, Tucker actually gains a conscience! For shame.
This is not a good movie. The jokes are stale, and the scenes meander and go nowhere. On a technical level, the acting, directing and the writing, in particular, are poor. While Max and screenplay partner Nils Parker may have thought lines such as "Not all girls are sluts, just most of 'em" and "She's not a bitch, she's a snatch napkin" were clever and controversial, they come off as bland and pathetic.
At the film's premiere three weeks ago, the audience, a group composed mainly of men in their late teens and 20s, howled with laughter and cheered throughout. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves, and their enthusiastic reaction may serve as a better indication of how this movie will be received than any review.
Still, as I kept one eye on the film and the other on the crowd, I kept thinking about a scene from "The Sopranos" in which two FBI agents make small talk while driving.
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public," one says.
The other agent pulls the car over and vomits.
