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Tucker Max is a thing of legend among sexually frustrated twenty-somethings: a laid-back, smooth-talking, beer-swilling young lawyer who turned his own personal conquests with a bevy of inebriated women into a best-selling book. Apparently, lots of people paid to read the book�just as some will inevitably pay to see Max�s movie�and that, my friends, is unfortunate.
In the movie, sometimes law student Tucker Max (played by Matt Czuchry) is on a mission. In just a few days, his good friend, Dan (Geoff Stults), is getting married�and Tucker intends to give him a bachelor party that he�ll never forget. All they need is a strip club that isn�t under the city�s pesky no-touch law�so Tucker proposes that he and his friends go on a road trip to the Greatest Strip Club Ever.
Tucker finally manages to drag his angry, bitter friend, Drew (Jesse Bradford) along�even though he�s still recovering from the trauma of catching his fianc�e cheating on him. But they run into an even bigger obstacle at Dan�s place. Dan�s stuffy future mother-in-law is showing up early�and Dan�s fianc�e, Kristy (Keri Lynn Pratt), doesn�t want him to stay out all night.
Unwilling to back down, Tucker lies to Kristy to appease her before continuing as planned. But an angry fianc�e is only the beginning of Dan�s problems; the worst is yet to come.
I just hope they serve beer at your neighborhood theater�because you�d need some serious beer goggles to enjoy this movie. It strives to be as crude and obnoxious as possible�and, in that, it can boast mild success. But it�s simply crude and obnoxious for the sake of being crude and obnoxious�and it�s just as shallow and unpleasant as its main character.
To make a movie like this one truly entertaining, it needs some kind of creative edge�something to make it stand out. Maybe an unexpected story�or some memorable characters�or some bitingly clever writing. Unfortunately, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell offers none of the above.
The story is nothing new�just a collection of overused plots involving bachelor parties gone wrong and strippers with hearts of gold. The characters, too, are overdone stereotypes. The female characters are mostly just objects: strippers, sluts, and fat chicks. And the only ones who are looked upon in a positive light are those who quietly take (and even enjoy) the abuse that Tucker and his friends dish out. Only one of the women fights back�though her revenge is just a set-up for what could possibly be the longest, most excessive scatological gag in the history of movies.
Meanwhile, none of the male characters are the slightest bit likeable�from bitter and superior Drew to Dan, the spineless follower who does whatever Tucker wants. Tucker, meanwhile, is completely repugnant�a horny Eddie Haskell who won�t think twice (in fact, he probably won�t even think once) about lying, cheating, and stealing to get his way. He doesn�t care about anyone but himself�and even during the film�s supposedly touching moment, when he finally faces his faults, he does so in the most self-centered of ways.
The writing, too, offers nothing new. It lacks subtlety and wit�and instead of finding clever ways to inject humor into the story, Max and co-writer Nils Parker chose to fill the script with uninspired insults. As a result, most of the film�s �humor� involves referring to women as �bitches� and �skanks� while Tucker discusses his ongoing quest to have sex with women with various disabilities.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is a dull, alcohol-fueled mess of irritating characters, dim-witted insults, and adolescent humor. In short, it�s a movie that only a drunken frat boy can love.
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