I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

Even though in reality Tucker Max may be a pretentious git and 'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' is by no means among the best in comedy, I actually enjoyed the film. I haven't read the novel but I liked the title and the actors so I have been looking forward to it. Then the negativity that surrounded it after release lowered my expectations and when I saw it last night I laughed.

The movie does try to use shock value (how often does one witness someone with a shitty ass on screen) but that doesn't work in its favour. The dialogues are quite extreme and even offensive to women but I liked how the women react to it. The Drew character mostly because of his transformation from heartbroken women hater to a devoted lover. For me the best scenes were with Drew and I enjoyed watching his love story with Lara unfold.

The acting is quite good. Matt Czuchry, Geoff Stults and Jesse Bradford are brilliant. Bradford steals the show with terrific dialogue delivery. This actor deserves some good scripts. Marika Dominiczyk is both sensual and sensational. Kerry Lyn Pratt is very likable.

'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' may not be a particularly great movie but it's fun once you're passed the misogynistic part of it. It doesn't really stay true to the title though.

The lead characters of this movie are smart - this much is readily apparent early on. I get it.

What I don't think anyone involved in this movie gets is that "smart" and "not funny" are not mutually exclusive.

The characters in the movie are smarter than the people they encounter - great. How do they wield it? By lording it over them; it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Only someone extremely insecure would take pleasure in this. Descriptions of the Tucker Max character as being a sociopath are not an exaggeration. The problem is that - unlike No Country for Old Men or The Shining (also featuring sociopaths)- this is supposed to be a comedy.

In addition, for all the talk of the realism of the dialog, it just sounds fake. All the clever diatribes and snipes one after another just seem like things you wish you'd said after the fact.

Movies are supposed to be about escape and I just couldn't relax into a world where this guy gets away with so much crap and basically walks away unscathed, having learned nothing.

This is not a terrible movie, but it's not very good either.

I have not read the book but I have read and enjoyed the stories from Tucker's website in the past.

That said I was expecting more from this movie. There are some very funny moments but for the most part it was just boring. Pacing was the biggest problem with this movie, parts of it just plod along without anything happening that moves the story along. I honestly think this could have been made better but cutting about 15-20 minutes out of the film - of course by then the whole thing would have been about 45 minutes long.

There are some funny scenes but the rest just seems to be filler material. For instance, the first bar that Tucker and his pals visit and then walk out of - what was the point of that whole scene? It did not develop the story at all and should have wound up on the cutting room floor.

The movie, as a whole, seems to lack polish. As I said, cut about 15-20 minutes out of it and things would have been improved greatly but it would not have been long enough for a feature film.

I had a chance to hear Tucker Max talk about the movie at a screening and he seemed quite confident that it would surpass Wedding Crashers as the highest grossing comedy of all time. After seeing the movie, it became quite clear that he was completely delusional. The movie has poor dialogue, a poor plot, and mediocre acting. I spent a little while trying to think of a redeeming quality, or any basis upon which I could recommend the movie to other people. I came up empty-handed.

If you are a huge Tucker Max fan and feel the urge to see the movie, just re-read the book. If you see the movie, you probably won't leave the theater as a fan anymore.

I gave this a 6/10 because I had some pretty good laughs throughout the movie. Some of the stories Tucker Max told were great. I'm a 24 year old college student and have a pretty dirty sense of humor. I wouldn't recommend this to my mom but I definitely would to my friends. I'm guessing the majority of the bad reviews came from older critics that are disgusted by the vulgarity of this movie. I do agree that the plot could have been improved. The stories were not quite as explicit as the book. The only character that I couldn't stand for the first hour of this movie was Jesse Bradford. He was very intelligent but a little over the top with his negative/depressing outlook on life(due to his recent break up). I would watch this movie again.