Rough Night review – faux-feminist gags fall flat

This gender-swap of Peter Berg’s 1998 film Very Bad Things is a Very Bad Thing indeed. Scarlett Johansson stars as Jess, a wannabe politician and bride-to-be who is whisked off to Miami by her college gal pals for her bachelorette party. The gang (comprising Jillian Bell, Zoë Kravitz, Ilana Glazer, Kate McKinnon and no detectable chemistry) accidentally kill a male stripper and must figure out what to do with the body. McKinnon gets a couple of good lines as Jess’s Aussie friend Pip (“singer-songwriter is the dream; party clown is the reality”), but even the film’s saltiness feels safe. Gags about piss and penis pasta, vibrators and self-waxing strips confuse vagina-related “jokes” with a feminist perspective, as signalled by Jess’s plan to win a game of beer pong “for womankind” in the opening scene.