Everybody needs to get paid. I understand that. We all have bills, and money is a cool thing to have. If I got a call from Warner Bros. Entertainment tomorrow, and they asked me to write them a modern House Party film for them for a decent amount of money, I’d say yes in a second. Who wouldn’t?
The same goes for directing and acting for such a vehicle. After all, David Fincher and Nicolas Cage aren’t going to get the House Party calls (the latter actually might). Instead it’s going to be up and coming actors and filmmakers. When you’re on your way to the top, money is a very cool thing to have.
House Party: Tonight’s the Night is about a bunch of kids graduating high school having a house party. They dance, rap, say a lot of nonsense and I think learn a lesson or two about life. The plot is not important. It’s a MacGuffin. I’m not exactly sure what it’s a MacGuffin for, but I know it’s a MacGuffin because it’s far too thin to be an actual plot.
In House Party, kids talk in a dialect resembling what a 40-something man not on Facebook assumes these young twittering kids speak like today. There’s also a lot of scenes ripping off movies like Step Up and 8 Mile that feel totally out of place. It’s a strange film that is incredibly unsure of its own tone or of what exactly its real purpose is … besides for getting everyone involved paid.
The film is so scattered and unsure in its presentation that sometimes it feels like a satire. It walks a fine line to the point where the film may be making fun of itself and movies like it, but then we get one or two serious moments and realize this is not a satire but a real movie with real characters or, at least, attempts at real characters.
The biggest complaint about House Party is the fact that it is rightly rated R but seems to market itself to little kids. I could be wrong about this, but the box art gave me the impression House Party was a Disney Channel movie. The movie heavily relies on sexual innuendos and random cursing (none of which fit in the movie–this could’ve been a Disney movie no problem if the title didn’t carry any expectations) and yet everything about the sets, shooting style and production values suggest this movie was modeled after shows like Hannah Montana.
Maybe I’m being too much of a “hater” as someone poetically says in the film. There’s a few laughs to be had here and House Party may appeal to a lot of people that listen to Ke$ha or feel like another Step Up movie should absolutely be made. For those people I proclaim: this is the movie for you. Look no further and have fun with it.
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