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A scene from I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.unknown

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

  • Directed by Bob Gosse
  • Written by Tucker Max and Nils Parker
  • Starring Matt Czuchry, Jesse Bradford, Marika Dominczyk
  • Classification: 18A

What would you get if you crossed The Hangover with American Psycho and directed with all the style of an episode of C.O.P.S ? The answer might be I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell , based on a book and blog by Tucker Max, who chronicles his boozy sexual adventures.

Max, a self-described "asshole," writes about behaviour that is sometimes criminal (randomly punching a strange woman in the crotch, attempting to secretly videotape a girl during sex). He does have some skill as a writer, with a distinct voice and some well-turned sentences.

The film, by contrast, has nothing to distinguish it except a hair-raising level of misogyny and comic tone-deafness. Nominally a gross-out guy-bonding comedy, the film often feels like an attempt to establish an insanity motive for some future crime. Unfunny from beginning to end, it's riddled with witless insults and run-on scenes of drunken, smug college guys in bars delivering long-winded insults to fascinated circles of women.

Tucker is played by the cherubic Matt Czuchry (of GilmoreGirls ), but his baby-faced mug isn't enough to make him charismatic, given the amount of crap that flows from his various orifices. Included is a prolonged scene of Tucker's explosive diarrhea as he makes life hell for a Hispanic hotel maid.

The story, co-written by Nils Parker and Max, starts with Tucker persuading his best friends -strait- laced, soon-to-be-married Dan (Geoff Stults) and misogynist nerd Drew (Jesse Bradford) - to take a weekend trip to a Texas strip club several hundred miles from their North Carolina college.

The rest of the film follows their collective misadventures. Dan lies to his fiancé (Keri Lynn Pratt) about where he's going, so he has some explaining to do when he ends up, beaten and soaked in his urine, in a drunk tank.

Drew, who never got over discovering his girlfriend performing oral sex on a rapper, expresses himself to women by threatening to shoot, gut and carve them if they don't cut out their "whore-babble." Since he believes women are "hard-wired to be whores," that pretty much sums up everything a woman says. But Drew softens when he meets a stripper (Marika Dominczyk) who can beat him at Halo and sees right through his serial-killer demeanour to the wounded little boy inside.

Meanwhile, Tucker, after insulting a prostitute-stripper about her going rate, fulfills his secret fantasy. Always up for having sex with any woman with a disability (though "fat girls aren't human"), he finally gets to bed a dwarf stripper, but manages to alienate his friends with his selfishness.

Perhaps the most disturbing scene in the movie is the attempt at a redemptive ending. After being told to stay away from Dan's wedding, Tucker crashes the reception anyway to make a speech, declaring that he finally understands the importance of friendship.

Just when you thought this movie had run out of bad ideas, this last-minute outpouring of sanctimony feels like a whole new way of being slimed. Some movies come with parental warnings; this one feels as though it should come with a mandatory biohazard suit.

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