Not quite Ferris Bueller...

Rating: 6/10 (21 July 2009)

Okay, it's about a stag night that goes wrong, four thirtysomething lads are heading out to the city of sin, Las Vegas - when they awake the next morning things have gone badly wrong but they can't remember any of it and have to retrace their steps.
I enjoyed it enough but it didn't quite hit the spot, somehow I felt Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, 40 Years Old Virgin, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) would have made it work better. It has the flavour of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but we don't quite get time to know the characters and the humour is a bit broad, a bit obvious in that it's designed to evoke the audience sympathies. Ooh, one of their friends is a bit weird with a horrid beard and lets his pants hang down of his backside! He's not allowed to be near schools it seems! What a character! Yawn. None of the actors are really comic actors. I didn't quite warm to them.
Towards the end of the film it loses touch with any semblance of reality, unlike 'kids'' movies like Risky Business or Ferris Bueller, where you had your heart in your mouth towards the finale.
What it did have in common with Apatow's films is the vein of misogyny he gets accused of; all of the women are shrews bar the happy hooker in Vegas played inevitably by Heather Graham.
Great soundtrack, Vegas looks terrific but not a hugely endearing film.