A bachelor party weekend in the great outdoors takes some unexpected detours.
It’s impossible to hate a film where the cast is so game, but you may struggle to remember it the morning after.
Makes Mrs. Brown’s Boys look like Finnegans Wake.
The Stag is an inoffensive debut for Butler, but a film on this subject needs a bit more cojones than this meek knockabout.
Mildly entertaining.
The trajectory of the film is predictable (ritual humiliation, nudity) and the ending is horribly maudlin, but Butler makes his points about masculinity, trust and friendship in droll enough fashion.
One or two set pieces don't quite have the requisite heft, yet the movie clicks whenever co-writer/director John Butler stops to admire the scenery: his fine cast locate the material's underlying pathos, and sustain a funny riff involving the one walker who can't stand U2 ("You are Irish, right?").
A good craic.
Innocuous but good-hearted.
General release. Check local listings for show times.