‘The Night Before’ review: Seth Rogen’s latest an unfunny comedy

In 2011, Joseph Gordon-Levitt played a young man with cancer and Seth Rogen was his sympathetic pal in Jonathan Levine’s “50/50.” The title referred to the hero’s odds of survival, but it also described the movie’s even split between stoner comedy and tender drama. A surprisingly sincere bromance, “50/50” succeeded because it was based on a true story (by Rogen’s friend Will Reiser) and because it wore its heart unabashedly on its sleeve.

The two actors and their director are back with “The Night Before,” whose comedy-to-drama ratio is more like 90/10. The story, which is mostly a series of drug-related jokes, doesn’t feel true, and the movie’s heart is on display in a rather obligatory way. “The Night Before,” unlike “50/50,” offers only the occasional laugh and never strikes a genuine chord.

Gordon-Levitt plays Ethan, whose parents were killed by a drunk driver while he was in college. Ethan’s best buddies, Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie), decide to cheer him up on Christmas Eve by taking him out for a night of alcohol-fueled debauchery. A little insensitive, you say? Nobody objects, and so begins a yearly tradition.

Adulthood arrives for Isaac, now a lawyer with a baby on the way (Jillian Bell plays his wife, Betsy), and for Chris, now a professional basketball player, but not for Ethan, who is still chasing the dream of attending a mythically hedonistic blowout called the Nutcracka Ball. When Ethan finally snags three tickets, Isaac and Chris halfheartedly agree to go.

This thin plot (by Levine and three co-writers) isn’t helped by adding several thin subplots: Isaac takes too many drugs, Chris wants to impress a famous teammate, Ethan pines for an ex-girlfriend (Lizzy Caplan). Ilana Glazer plays Rebecca, a prankster who exists solely to annoy Chris (and us), while Mindy Kaling is wasted as a non-character named Sarah.

Michael Shannon scores a few laughs by applying his trademark intensity to the role of a weed-toking mystic named Mr. Green, but even here the tone of magical whimsy seems stolen from other movies (particularly the “Harold and Kumar” series). “The Night Before” might seem less cynical if we hadn’t seen how sincere these filmmakers could be.