Amateur Night | |
---|---|
Directed by | Lisa Addario Joe Syracuse |
Written by | Lisa Addario Joe Syracuse |
Produced by | Jorge Garcia Castro Mary Pat Bentel Diego del Río Toca Shana Eddy-Grouf |
Starring | Jason Biggs Jenny Mollen Janet Montgomery Ashley Tisdale Bria Murphy |
Cinematography | Nicole Whitaker |
Edited by | Greg O'Bryant |
Music by | The Newton Brothers |
Distributed by | Cinedigm |
Release date |
|
Running time | 92 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Amateur Night is a 2016 American comedy film written and directed by Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse. Their early experiences in Hollywood were the basis for the plot of the film. [2] The film stars Jason Biggs, Jenny Mollen, Janet Montgomery, Ashley Tisdale and Bria Murphy. [3]
Amateur Night held its world premiere in Los Angeles on July 25, 2016, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 5, 2016, by Cinedigm. [4] The film was met with negative reviews from critics.
Guy Carter (Jason Biggs) is an unemployed architect struggling to make ends meet. With bills piling up, his wife Anne (Jenny Mollen) finds a job posting on Craigslist for a driver and sends Guy, against his will, for the job. Guy then goes for the interview expecting to be a pizza driver but finds himself as a chauffeur for a prostitute named Nikki (Janet Montgomery).
Nikki tells Guy that their first stop would be a regular of hers, a kinky doctor in Bel Air (Steven Weber). She tells Guy to wait in the car for her but when she doesn't respond for hours, Guy decides to break into the house. He finds Nikki in a compromising bondage position and thinks that the doctor is torturing Nikki, and tries to rescue her by spraying him with air freshener. They both then flee from the scene after the doctor falls over the ground and hits his head.
Guy is horrified by the situation but is calmed down by Nikki. She then informs him about the duties that came with the job and that he gets a cut of the "take", which prompts Guy to now be very interested in the job. They then proceed to pick up two other prostitutes, Jaxi (Bria Murphy) and Fallon (Ashley Tisdale), for a bachelor party. At the house, Guy is ordered to wash the "hardware," referring to a large bag filled with very messy sex toys.
The four then head to a fancy hotel in Beverly Hills for the bachelor party. The party is filled with over excited testosterone-driven former frat boys. The girls then appoint Guy to play "pimp" to get the frat boys in line. What follows is various strip teases and sexually explicit dancing, followed by a "main event," involving Fallon ejaculating directly on Guy.
Guy leaves the party momentarily when Anne goes into false labor. To his dismay, he runs into the doctor he assaulted, who ends up holding him hostage with a syringe filled with a paralyzing drug, and orders Guy to take him to Nikki. At their arrival, the doctor's plans are foiled when Nikki causes him to stab himself with the syringe. The bachelor party then resumes at full speed but comes to a halt when the girls find themselves robbed. The girls then hold the entire bachelor party at gun point, demanding the return of their money. They chase the culprit down long halls and end up urinating on him before taking back their money.
As they leave the hotel, one of the bachelor party guy approaches Nikki and asks for a "quickie." It is then revealed that he is an undercover cop and he attempts to arrest Nikki. This prompts Guy to once again rescue her and they are caught in a cop car chase. The four manage to escape the cops but end up crashing Guy's car. They continue to escape on a bus.
They return, exhausted, to their homes in the early morning. Nikki thanks Guy by hiring him to design a house for her and tells him the "hardware" will be awaiting him for the next round. Guy expects arresting cops to be at his house but it turns out his car was found by "repo men" and hauled away before the cops could find it.
Being based on a true story, the credits play over scenes that actually took place.
In late 2014, Entertainment Weekly announced that Jason Biggs and Ashley Tisdale would lead the cast of Drive, She Said. Janet Montgomery, Bria Murphy, Jenny Mollen, Adrian Voo and Steven Weber would round out the cast. [5]
Drive, She Said was one of the few productions in 2014 to receive a California State Tax Credit for filming in Los Angeles. [6]
On November 22, Tisdale was photographed arriving to an undisclosed film set in Los Angeles, script in hand. On December 5, The Hollywood Reporter announced that the film had wrapped production. [2] E! Online published a NSFW still of Murphy in character the following day. [7]
In January 2016, it was announced Cinedigm had acquired North American distribution rights to the film and planned a mid-2016 domestic theatrical release. [8] On May 5, People magazine announced that film would be released in theaters on August 5 and shared the first official trailer and poster. [9]
In North America, Amateur Night was released on digital download on August 12, 2016, and DVD on October 4, 2016. [10]
The film was released in the United Kingdom as The Escorts on June 12, 2017. [11]
Amateur Night received negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 0% based on reviews from 6 critics. [12] On Metacritic the film has a score of 38 out of 100 based on reviews from 5 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". [13]
J Don Birnam of Latino Review gave the film a B− grade and noted that "to deny that Amateur Night made me laugh in its crass immaturity would be dishonest. I laughed." [14] Michael Rechtshaffen of Los Angeles Times noted that "the film insistently asserts its autobiographical roots at the expense of sharper plotting and characterizations, not to mention more energetic pacing." [15] Chris Packham of Village Voice called the film "uninspired" but praised the script's narrative reversal and Montgomery's performance. [16] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter commented that the film "gives sex comedies a bad name" but praised Biggs and Montgomery's chemistry. [17] Keith Watson of Slant Magazine commented that "the film is peppered with interesting true-life details, but these are overwhelmed by frantic comedic sequences." [18] Jason Ooi of The Playlist gave the film a C− grade and wrote "though based on a true story, Amateur Night still feels like just another raunchy comedy." [19]
Edward Regan Murphy is an American actor and comedian. He rose to fame on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which he was a regular cast member from 1980 to 1984. Murphy has also worked as a stand-up comedian and is ranked No. 10 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. Murphy has received a Grammy Award and an Emmy Award and was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2015 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2023.
American Wedding is a 2003 American sex comedy film written by Adam Herz and directed by Jesse Dylan. It is the sequel to American Pie (1999) and American Pie 2 (2001), and the third of the American Pie franchise. The franchise was later expanded into a series of direct-to-DVD standalone sequels, under the umbrella title American Pie Presents, that began with the release of Band Camp (2005).
Jason Matthew Biggs is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Jim Levenstein in the American Pie comedy film series, Leonardo in the first three seasons of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), and Larry Bloom in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black. He also starred in Boys and Girls, Loser, Saving Silverman, Anything Else, Jersey Girl, Eight Below, Over Her Dead Body, and My Best Friend's Girl. Biggs initially gained recognition from his role in the soap opera As the World Turns, for which he was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series in 1995.
Beverly Hills Cop is a 1984 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Martin Brest, screenplay by Daniel Petrie Jr., story by Danilo Bach and Daniel Petrie Jr., and starring Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a street-smart Detroit cop who visits Beverly Hills, California, to solve the murder of his best friend. Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Lisa Eilbacher, Steven Berkoff, Paul Reiser, and Jonathan Banks appear in supporting roles.
Spun is a 2002 American black comedy crime drama film directed by Jonas Åkerlund from an original screenplay by William De Los Santos and Creighton Vero, based on three days of De Los Santos's life in the Eugene, Oregon, drug subculture. The film stars Jason Schwartzman, John Leguizamo, Mena Suvari, Patrick Fugit, Peter Stormare, Alexis Arquette, Deborah Harry, Rob Halford, Eric Roberts, Chloe Hunter, Nicholas Gonzalez, Brittany Murphy and Mickey Rourke.
Ashley Michelle Tisdale is an American actress and singer. During her childhood, she was featured in over 100 advertisements and had minor roles in television and theatre. She achieved mainstream success as Maddie Fitzpatrick in the Disney Channel teen sitcom The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005–2008). This success was heightened when she starred as Sharpay Evans in the High School Musical film series (2006–2008). The success of the films led to Tisdale's signing with Warner Bros. Records and subsequently releasing her debut studio album, Headstrong (2007), which was a commercial success, earning a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Tisdale played the voice role of Candace Flynn in the Disney Channel animated series Phineas & Ferb (2007–2015).
Vampire in Brooklyn is a 1995 American vampire black comedy film directed by Wes Craven. It stars Eddie Murphy, who produced and wrote with his brothers Vernon Lynch and Charles Q. Murphy. The film co-stars Angela Bassett, Allen Payne, Kadeem Hardison, John Witherspoon, Zakes Mokae, and Joanna Cassidy. Murphy also plays an alcoholic preacher, Pauly, and a foul-mouthed Italian-American mobster, Guido, respectively.
Jenny Ann Biggs (née Mollen) is an American actress and published writer and essayist. She played Nina Ash on the television series Angel (2003–04). She appeared on the series Viva Laughlin (2007), Crash (2008), and Girls (2014).
Jennifer Wade is an American actress known for playing Liz Traynor on the Fox television series The Good Guys, Nina in The CW television series Reaper, and the character of Honey Pie in the Feast film trilogy.
My Best Friend's Girl is a 2008 American romantic comedy film by Howard Deutch and stars Dane Cook, Kate Hudson, Jason Biggs, Diora Baird, Alec Baldwin, Riki Lindhome and Lizzy Caplan. It was released on September 19, 2008. The film received generally unfavorable reviews from critics and grossed $41 million.
Picture This is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Stephen Herek. Starring Ashley Tisdale and Kevin Pollak, the film was released on July 13, 2008, on television by ABC Family, branded as an ABC Family Original Movie, and on July 22, 2008, on DVD. The film is produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and drew 5.3 million viewers.
American actress Ashley Tisdale has appeared in many motion pictures and television programs since starting her career in 1988. Tisdale made her acting debut at age 12 with small roles in the 1997 television series Smart Guy and 7th Heaven. A year later, she had her first voice role in the feature film A Bug's Life. In the following years, she had small roles in television shows such as Beverly Hills, 90210 (2000), The Amanda Show (2000), Charmed (1998) in the third season, as a runaway teen, The Hughleys (2002), Still Standing (2003) and Boston Public (2000). Her performance in the last earned her a Young Artist Award nomination for "Best Performance in a Television Drama Series." She was eventually cast in her first main role in Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody in 2005, which had three seasons (2005–2008).
Spread is a 2009 American sex comedy film directed by David Mackenzie and starring Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 2009, and was released in North American theaters by Anchor Bay Films on August 14, 2009.
National Lampoon Presents Cattle Call is a 2006 National Lampoon comedy film written and directed by Martin Guigui, and starring Thomas Ian Nicholas and Jenny Mollen. It was Chelsea Handler's feature film debut, and includes cameo appearances from Paul Mazursky and Jonathan Winters. The film was released via DVD on May 13, 2008, by Lionsgate Home Entertainment.
Janet Ruth Montgomery is an English film and TV actress. She first gained attention for her role as Ames in the second season of the television series Human Target (2010–11), and also for her appearance in the 2009 straight-to-DVD film The Hills Run Red. She played the lead character in the television drama Made in Jersey (2012), cancelled after eight episodes. From 2014 to 2017, she starred as the lead character, Mary Sibley, in the series Salem. Montgomery has played the role of Lauren Bloom on the medical drama television series New Amsterdam since 2018.
Life Happens is a 2011 American comedy film directed by Kat Coiro and written by Coiro and Krysten Ritter. The film stars Ritter, Kate Bosworth, Kristen Johnston, Geoff Stults, Jason Biggs, and Rachel Bilson. Ritter plays the main character, Kim, who lives with her two roommates, Deena (Bosworth) and Laura (Bilson), in Los Angeles. Kim becomes pregnant after a one-night stand so she turns to her friends for help. Life Happens was released theatrically on April 13, 2012.
Bad Words is a 2013 American black comedy film directed by Jason Bateman and written by Andrew Dodge. Marking Bateman's feature film directorial debut, the film stars Bateman as a middle-aged eighth grade dropout who enters the National Golden Quill Spelling Bee through a loophole. It also stars Kathryn Hahn, Rohan Chand, Ben Falcone, Philip Baker Hall, and Allison Janney.
The Happytime Murders is a 2018 American adult puppet buddy cop crime comedy film directed by Brian Henson and written by Todd Berger from a story by Berger and Dee Austin Robertson. The film stars Melissa McCarthy, Bill Barretta, Joel McHale, Maya Rudolph, Leslie David Baker, and Elizabeth Banks. Set in a world where humans and living puppets co-exist, the film follows a puppet private investigator and a human police detective who must solve a murder spree of retired sitcom stars.
Adrian Voo is a Malaysian film actor. He came to prominence with supporting roles in the comedy films Amateur Night and Dear Dictator.
Dear Dictator is a 2018 American satire comedy film written and directed by Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse. The film stars Michael Caine, Katie Holmes, Odeya Rush, Seth Green, and Jason Biggs.