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Script Review: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max & Nils Parker

[In lieu of actual content, for the next several weeks I will present, at least, one review of an upcoming film each week. These are scripts that I’ve been paid money to read, and many of them contain watermarking, identification numbers, password-protection, and other ways of tracking what company it was sent to; because of this and my desire to keep my job, I will not offer downloads for ANY of the scripts I review here. Don’t bother asking.]

Where do I even begin?

I’ve never liked Tucker Max. I’m not calling him a pale, friendless virgin, and I’m sure his fans (who might be pale, friendless virgins) will dogpile on me for even suggesting this, but his stories always struck me as bullshit. I didn’t think this at first, mostly because I didn’t care, but I have a friend who liked Tucker Max’s material more than any sane person should, so I checked out a couple of his stories. I recall reading his “Absinthe Donuts” story shortly after its debut. My immediate thought: “This sounds like the kind of bullshit a guy would make up to impress much stupider friends.” My second thought: “Let me use my knowledge of the Chicago news media to debunk this story.” Because, you know, when somebody crashes a stolen car into a donut shop and flees the scene, it’ll make the news. It might be on page 17 of Section E, or even worse, a tiny blurb in the police blotter, but it’ll be there, and since allegedly the story had taken place “a few weeks ago” and had just been posted to his site, it’s not like it’d be impossible to find any information about it.

Except it was. Because it didn’t happen. So there’s that. When you go to a site where a guy emphasizes repeatedly, almost to the point of suspicion, how true his stories are, yet you find one that both rings cartoonishly false and isn’t corroborated by, um, reality, and you don’t even find it funny? Why waste your time with that shit? The only thing that makes Tucker Max’s bullshit stories even remotely funny is the slim possibility there’s some truth to them. But when the “outrageous” things Max says and does strain credulity, and they’re barely funny even when they seem true, well… Let’s just say I read the stories, got annoyed enough to Google him in an attempt to find out what the fuss was all about, and then forgot about him again…

…until last year, when this blog post helped me discover three terrifying truths: (1) that Tucker Max’s stories had been converted into a book, (2) that this book was a bestseller, and (3) that Tucker Max had co-written a screenplay adaptation that was actually getting made. I won’t rant about how shocked I am that anybody would dare to make this movie. Based on that blogger’s review, the script was as horrible and unfunny as Max’s site, but he somehow has enough fans to become a legitimate bestseller, so turning it into a schlocky movie starring a bunch of WB castoffs makes good financial sense.

Well, now the movie’s finally coming out, and this week I’ve decided to examine the script myself. Unlike the rest of these script reviews, I was not at any point paid to read this. I glommed on to a copy of the script out of morbid curiosity, and unfortunately, “morbid curiosity” is the closest I come to having interest in any of the movies coming out this week. “Paid to slog through it” doesn’t qualify as interest, unfortunately.

I was sure I wouldn’t find it funny, and that would color my judgment, but I had no idea it would be a complete fucking disaster of a screenplay. The writing, in the broadest sense of the word (i.e., spelling, grammar, and diction) is good, as expected. In fact, it’s one of the rare scripts I’ve read that spells “palate” correctly (usually it’s “palette” or “pallet,” which always makes me laugh), so Max and writing partner Nils Parker get some bonus points for that. However, a few bonus points do not make up for the flaming turd surrounding all those properly used words and commas.

The story goes like this: Tucker drags his buddies Jeff and Aaron to an out-of-town strip club, alleging it’s a bachelor party celebration for engaged Jeff. In reality, Tucker wanted to fuck a midget stripper (no, really, and believe me — the only joke here is “A midget! Isn’t that hilarious?!” which would be a lot funnier if R. Kelly hadn’t already done the same thing in Trapped in the Closet*) and dragged his friends along for the ride. Eventually Jeff gets pissed off and leaves, refusing to invite Tucker to his wedding. Meanwhile, Aaron hooks up with a stripper and does a farfetched 180 from over-the-top misogynist nerd to sensitive caretaker. This leaves Tucker alone, and at his lowest point, he shits all over a hotel room, hotel hallway, hotel elevator, and public restroom. In the gripping final moments, Tucker crashes Jeff’s wedding, gives a speech in which he allegedly apologizes for his bad behavior and wins back the hearts and mind of his best friend and her new wife. In an “ironic” twist, Tucker explains that most of his apology speech was bullshit, then sets his sights on fucking a blind chick, an “amusing” “callback” to a “joke” earlier in the script where he fucks a deaf girl and someone quips that, when combined with a mute girl he had fucked prior to the start of the story, he was “two-thirds of the way to a Helen Keller.”

Let’s start with the biggest mitigating factor: the characters. Tucker, the alpha-male in a trio of lunkheads, is an asshole. Tucker Max being an asshole is the lynchpin of nearly all his stories, so this came as no surprise. He also wisely created a character called Aaron, who exists solely to provide evidence that Tucker is a cooler-than-thou gynophile instead of an unfunny misogynist. In addition to being cartoonishly hateful, Aaron becomes the butt of many “nerd” jokes (about video games, Star Trek, fast food, and his inability to score). And then there’s Jeff, the “regular guy” who’s getting married and only puts up with Tucker’s antics because, I guess, they’ve been friends for a long time (it’s never actually said why he’s willing to put up with Tucker’s crap until the third act, when it’s too late to matter).

Based on the movie’s website and its trailer, the filmmakers are sort of getting off on the idea of how “edgy” and “different” this is from other comedies. From a story standpoint, though, it’s really not. It has the same archetypal trio found in nearly every phallocentric sex comedy, who I generally argue represent Freud’s superego, ego, and id: you have the “regular guy” (superego), the “nerd who can’t get laid” (ego), and the “sociopath” (id). The only thing “different” about this script is that it attempts in vain to turn the Vince Vaughn/Christian Slater sociopath role into a compelling lead character. Notice I don’t say “protagonist,” because Tucker is not the protagonist of this story; although he’s marginalized for most of the script, Jeff still remains the protagonist, while Tucker is his antagonist. Tucker is the one constantly hurling obstacles in Jeff’s path. As in most sex comedies, regular guy Jeff is always the one willing to trust the sociopath’s judgment and wonder why it keeps getting him in trouble. Regular guy Jeff is the one who finally “dumps” his friend, then takes him back at the end because hey, man, bros before hos. The script follows all these usual beats, only focusing on Tucker instead of Jeff.

Tucker is unlikable by design, and he’s the antagonist, but these don’t have to be problems. Plenty of movies successfully focus on unlikable villains, but the difference is, (a) the filmmakers acknowledge the character’s flaws, or (b) they give us enough insight into why the character is so unlikable that we can empathize with him. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell attempts to persuade audiences that the unlikable main character is a lovable goof. The script often references the “mischievous twinkle” in Tucker’s eyes, the women he insults and degrades often attempt to rebuff his rapier wit, but they ultimately realize he’s both a comic genius (despite the script’s lack of laughs) and a sex god (despite the fact that, in the entire script, Tucker manages to score with a deaf girl and a midget stripper but not any of the dozens of extremely attractive women he disarms with gems like “That’s funny, normally the designated cock-blocker is the fat one.”). Neither Max nor Parker seem overly concerned with admitting Tucker has flaws or in developing an audience outside their undersexed super-nerd niche. We’re simply expected to like Tucker because he’s the main character, and because he’s an irrepressible rapscallion.

You might have noticed from the plot summary that, well, there’s not much of one. The script shambles from one limp gag to another, on a steady narrative course that (midget strippers and shit rivers excepted) we’ve all seen before. Despite the by-the-numbers storyline, Max and Parker still do a poor job of building momentum. It feels more like a “series of scenes that ends with 30 seconds of cheap moralizing” than an actual story, and that’s not its only similarity to Family Guy: the script too often relies on fantasy cutaways that don’t really add anything to the story or characters. In theory, they add humor, but even if you find this shit funny, you’ll probably agree that jokes alone won’t make this a good script.

The only good thing to come out of my reading of this script is this: I finally figured out why Tucker Max has some popularity. It took me awhile to figure it out, but one scene in the script really drove the point home:

Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy here? A guy named Tucker — fucking Tucker — ripping on a guy for having a name like Chance, Reed, or Logan. Tucker, for fuck’s sake. Then, ridiculing him for falling into all the stereotypes of your typical meathead, which Tucker so elegantly rises above by… What? Going to law school? Which shows that he’s a genius and therefore above all the fratty/douchey/meathead bullshit? Even though he acts exactly like a fratty, douchey meathead?

And that’s when it hit me: all this time, I assumed Tucker was trying to appeal to that frat-boy date-rapist demographic, but now I know the truth: he’s trying to appeal to lonely super-nerds who wish they can live the Tucker Max lifestyle. Why else would most of the jokes in this script revolve around video games, Star Trek, and McGriddles? Why would Tucker’s only sexual conquests occur with the type of lonely woman even a super-nerd could get into bed, simply by sidling up next to them and showing them a little attention? It all started to fall into place for me, but not really in a good way.

Based on this script, I have no doubt that I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell will suck as hard as Tucker Max’s stories, but I will say one thing in its favor: the trailer, while it does not contain any actual laughs, shows that the actors are at least trying to breathe life into horrible characters and unfunny dialogue. They might be mired in a sea of stupid jokes, barely managing to stay afloat on the leaky ship of bad agent advice, but at least they’re trying.

*For you Tucker Max fans whining, “B-b-but Tucker posted a story about fucking a midget stripper on his website years ago!” Yeah, I know. I looked it up, and according to his story, the incident took place in July of 2006. R. Kelly released chapters 6-12 of Trapped in the Closet — the ones featuring Big Man, the well-endowed midget stripper — in November of 2005. So fuck off, you retards. [Back]

Tags: adaptation, book, comedy, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, midget, Nils Parker, R. Kelly, screenplay, Trapped in the Closet, Tucker Max, unfunny

Posted by Stan on September 21, 2009 10:53 AM  | Permalink  | Print-Friendly  | Reviews | Digg It