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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 fiancée 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 fiancée, 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 fiancée 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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