I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

You won't like this movie, trust me. You just won't. That's not to say that I didn't like it. In fact, I did. But you won't. It's just one of those movies.

I didn't know much about Tucker Max, but he turns out to be one of the many seduction gurus who has popped up in recent years to help men understand how to talk to women. I completely understand why this phenomenon has arisen. Max turns out to be one of the more obnoxious members of this group, and he wrote a book about just how awful he is. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is based on the book of the same name.

I had spent the afternoon with my sister and her kids in Westmister, and then went to see this at the AMC multiplex a few miles north. Like the Colorado Mills, it is located inside a recently built lifestyle center. I caught the ten pm show, the last one available before the movie was shipped out.

The plot is very similar to The Hangover, which was a huge hit this summer and is still in some theaters in the area. The Hangover was extremely popular, but I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell will not be popular at all. The official reason is that the latter is too raunchy.

But ironically I found The Hangover to be a lot cruder in its own way, because Beer in Hell actually charts the course of a dynamic character, whereas The Hangover is a typical "bromance" comedy. Because Beer in Hell is about Max, who is open about his attitude towards women, it will come across as mysognist, but I found The Hangover to be much more cruel to women.

But this is because I found the classical elements in Beer in Hell to give it deeper meaning. I know that 99% of audiences want the usual Postmodern rigamarole about sex roles, without having to be challenged with anything novel or out of the ordinary, as Beer in Hell will do.

Throughout much of the movie, I couldn't help thinking of Max as the "evil" version of Ferris Bueller---he forces his friends to play hookie in a big way, for selfish reasons, and causes them a great deal of harm in his quest for self-gratification. But unlike Bueller, Max gets his comeuppance in a big way, and is forced to undergo a transformation based on the revelation he receives from this.

Actually I recently read a movie review ont he web arguing that Ferris Bueller was a classic psycopath, and that Principal Rooney was the real hero of that movie. The author makes a persuasive argument. So perhaps Beer in Hell is the "realistic" version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a little grown-up to be sure.