Review: Stellar cast boosts stoner comedy 'Night Before'

Boosted by its stellar cast and playful take on A Christmas Carol, ''The Night Before is a coming-of-age stoner-buddy comedy laced with warm holiday cheer.

Make no mistake: it's still a silly romp thick with dope smoke and dumb jokes, but the performances are solid, and there's some surprising sentiment behind the wacky antics.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anthony Mackie play best friends bidding farewell to their 10-year tradition of partying together on Christmas Eve.

Isaac's wife, Betsy (the hilarious and soon-to-be everywhere Jillian Bell), gives her husband a special gift in honor of his last Christmas Eve with his pals: a box filled with "every single drug in the whole world."

With his Juilliard pedigree and dramatic gravitas, Mackie has poise and charisma to spare, so it's oddly comic to hear him utter such lines as, "I just fame-(expletive) that hipster chick!"

The Night Before," a Columbia Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "drug use and language throughout, some strong sexual content and graphic nudity.