Within the first five minutes of watching About Last Night you can gather that it is not your typical romance movie, and if you were unsure what the rating of the movie was you know immediately after watching the first scene. Not that the movie has received terrible reviews, but they haven’t quite received praise either for their remake of the Demi Moore 1986 film. If I had to guess, I would say it is largely due to some of the cheesy lines that exist between two of the main characters, Danny (Michael Ealy) and Debbie (Joy Bryant), and the incredibly fast motion of the scenes. The movie doesn’t even give you a chance to grasp what is happening before it picks up and moves on without you. In all fairness, I do realize how much ground the film has to cover since it is detailing two relationships and not just one. Further, this trailer far exceeds the trailer for the 1986 film, which is almost brutal to watch. But, still I would have liked to see more flow.
With so many of the characters in About Last Night being from the other relationship comedy, Think Like a Man, they are beginning to form a recognizable unit. Michaely Ealy, Regina Hall, and Kevin Hart, are three of the four main characters from About Last Night and will also be seen together in the upcoming sequel Think Like a Man Too.
About Last Night takes you through a fast-paced year that follows two contradictory couples -- the first being Bernie (Kevin Hart) and Joan (Regina Hall). After the two loud, emotionally driven, characters meet and wind up having a one-night stand, they decide to go out on a date and each bring their best friend in the hopes of setting them up. Immediately, the double date goes from normal to kinky when Bernie and Joan get plastered together and ditch their “boring” friends to go to the ladies room together. Danny (Michael Ealy) and Debbie (Joy Bryant), who are virtually strangers at this point, are on their own. Danny has been escaping an insanely possessive and psychotic ex-girlfriend, Allison, for the last year and has yet been able to plunge into a new relationship. Debbie is able to captivate him by her mature and sophisticated personality, and they spontaneously end up having their own one-night stand and so, the story begins.
Kevin Hart is aggressively funny throughout the entire movie. There is only one line, at the most, where he gets sensitive and serious on us. Regina Hall does well at matching his experienced comedic capability, and they ultimately unite to form a hilariously dysfunctional couple. It’s almost awful that the audience feeds off their disturbing antics, but they make it hard not to. Bernie and Joan have an on-again off-again relationship that is primarily based upon screaming at each other and odd sexual behaviors, such as Joan wearing a chicken mask.
Some of Joan’s feistiest and wild moments from the film include : pinning Bernie down in her Dentist’s chair in only her lingerie to satisfy her crave of cleaning the plaque off his teeth, throwing water in his face, and turning off a few girls by telling them Bernie has nothing to offer in bed. There is really nothing that she won’t do, and they are constantly challenging each other as a partnership. Somehow their craziness suits one another, in a very unnatural way.
The opposing duo, Debbie and Danny, keep the movie grounded. They round out the movie by providing the sappiness needed for any decent Valentine’s Day release. Although they slept together after just the first night, you can tell their relationship is valuable. They begin spending all their time together and Danny is able to open up once again with a woman, after his damaging relationship with Allison. After just a few months, Debbie moves out of Joan’s apartment and in with Danny. At this time, Bernie and Joan are off-again, so the outspoken friends make it known they do not approve. When Debbie and Danny are in love, Bernie and Joan are fuming, and vice versa. This keeps them in a constant state of trying to balance their friendships and their significant others and always trying to avoid the awkward run-ins with their past flings.
In the end, both couples find their way back to one another after some typical and not so typical ups and downs. Kevin Hart has proved himself to be a dominant comedian and actor, and this is just the first of many lead roles to come. But again, Regina Hall held her own as a strong, comical, lead actress, and it would not have been the same without her. Overall, I recommend seeing it at some point, because it did give everyone a good laugh, especially if you are a Kevin Hart fan. But, I would not say you need to rush to the theaters -- it can wait.
Image Courtesy of Sony Pictures