The Night Before Movie Review–Keanu Reeves Will Really Surprise You

For those of you who happen to be limited Keanu Reeves fans, you’re going to be pretty surprised by the knowledge that he was in a whole lot more than Bill And Ted back in the eighties. One of the “whole lot more” is a movie featured in Lions Gate’s recent The Lost Collection called The Night Before, a movie that’ll show you what can happen when you start at the end and work your way backward.
Basically, Winston, vice-president of the Astronomy club and all-around doofus extraordinaire, wakes up late one night—or possibly very, very early one morning—in an alley with a semi truck about to run him over, and a series of unpleasant events both behind him already and about to happen. His father’s red convertible Mustang has been stolen, he’s sold his prom date (a cheerleader / teen model who’s lost a bet) for fifteen hundred dollars…and after a hilarious turn at a microphone in a sleazy night club / bar, a guy named Tito wants him dead at sunrise. Worse yet, the girl’s father is a police detective with a whole cabinet full of guns back at the house. Thus, it’s left to Winston to get the girl and get out alive before sunrise comes and either Tito or his prom date’s father comes to get him.
The thing that really makes The Night Before work, aside from an excellently written script, is the work of Keanu Reeves. I hadn’t expected Keanu to do much of anything after watching him “dude” his way through Bill And Ted, and snarl his way through The Matrix. But in The Night Before, Keanu manages to bring multiple levels to his character Winston, driving him alternately between a callow, scared little boy and a drug-addled wild man. Even better, Winston even manages to grow as a character during his tenure, becoming steadily more self-reliant from his prom night spent on the streets of what I’m guessing is Los Angeles from the sheer amount of time they spend talking about “Marina Del Rey” and the Pacific Coast Highway.
And, as if actual character development in a movie—a downright rarity any more—weren’t good enough for you, maybe you’ll be enthused by the bit of action and crime drama they slipped into the proceedings besides. That’s reason enough to get even the most skeptical parties interested. Sure got ME interested.