The plot centered around the accidental death of a stripper during a bachelorette party will undoubtedly draw comparisons to Very Bad Things, but unlike Peter Berg's dreadful 1998 film, Rough Night doesn't just shove witless sadistic humor down the viewer's throat for 100 minutes. Aniello prevents the proceedings from ever entering unpleasantly fucked up territory by throwing a healthy dose of good-natured absurdist humor into the mix without ever losing sight of the inevitable darkness that comes with having a story that's centered around a murder. Absurdity and morbidity is a pretty tough juxtaposition to make work, but Rough Night is able to pull it off smoothly without any jarring tonal transitions or noteworthy joke misfires.
Rough Night also benefits from being impeccably cast from top to bottom. The women caught in the middle of this bachelorette party gone wrong (Scarlett Johansson, Jillian Bell, Kate McKinnon, Ilana Glazer, Zoe Kravitz) are collectively terrific and the hilarious supporting cast (headlined by Demi Moore, Ty Burrell and Paul W. Downs, who also co-wrote the screenplay) all do their part to help escalate the gleeful insanity of the film's events. Having a strong cast is particularly important in the energy-and-camaraderie driven world of comedy, and this is without question one of the strongest, most in-sync ensembles I've seen in recent memory.
While it's certainly less accessible than a majority of the other R-rated raunchfests that hit theaters every summer, I felt that Rough Night lived up to the elite comedic pedigree of its cast and crew. Everyone involved in this production brought their A-game and in shows in the near-constant hilarity that graces the screen. It's going to take a hell of an effort from The House, The Hitman's Bodyguard and the other handful of comedies set for release over the next two months to knock these lethal ladies off of the genre's summer 2017 throne.
4/5 Stars
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