THE NIGHT BEFORE (Rated R)

The holidays are fast approaching, and as usual, films with a Christmas holiday theme geared to family viewing are often on hand.

Of course, that may not be the case when part of the seasonal revelry involves an extended humorous scene involving Anthony Wiener-style cell phone imagery.

With Seth Rogen as no stranger to drug-fueled comedies, including “Pineapple Express” and “This is the End,” it should come as no surprise that “The Night Before” is appropriately rated R for drug use, strong sexual content and graphic nudity.

Oddly enough, “The Night Before” gets a rousing start with traditional storybook narration by Tracy Morgan, setting the stage for the enduring friendship of three disparate characters upholding a Christmas Eve tradition dating back to the their teenage years.

Having lost his parents in a tragic car accident when in high school, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Ethan remains in a state of arrested development. Unable to commit to his former girlfriend Diana (Lizzy Caplan) for whom he still carries a torch, Ethan’s life is stuck in place.

Meanwhile, Seth Rogen’s Isaac is a married man with an established career. His wife Betsy (Jillian Bell) is pregnant with their first child.

Needing to settle down into adulthood, Isaac find this Christmas Eve in New York to be likely his last night of debauchery.

That wild times loom for Isaac’s blowout holiday finale is made all the more evident by the unexpected gift he receives from Betsy, a tidy little box of hallucinogenic drugs, from mushrooms and cocaine to weed and an assorted mix of various pills.

Rounding out the trio is Anthony Mackie’s Chris, a journeyman professional football player suddenly thrust into fame in his NFL career at the unlikely age of 34, most likely due to the fact that his on-field performance has been recently enhanced by steroids.

These buddies have formed a pact to celebrate Christmas Eve each year with a series of rituals, from visiting the massive Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center and wearing garish holiday sweaters to signing karaoke in a dive bar and searching for an elusive underground party.

Since Ethan is somewhat adrift in his professional life, he starts the evening as a waiter dressed in an elf costume serving drinks and hors d’oeuvres before being demoted to the position of coat room attendant.

While putting away an overcoat, Ethan stumbles upon three golden tickets which are the coveted invites to the exclusive Nutcracka Ball, a secret shindig that moves around the five boroughs of New York City.

The tickets represent the Holy Grail of holiday partying, and while Isaac and Chris are ecstatic about the sudden good fortune that has fallen into Ethan’s hands, there are number of obstacles and humorous situations that may derail their long-awaited celebratory plans.

First of all, Isaac has consumed so many drugs that he tries to counteract one bad reaction with an ingestion of other drugs that he mistakenly believes would ameliorate the ill effects.

Getting separated from the group, Isaac staggers around Manhattan in a state of freefall, winding up in front of a Catholic church where he encounters Betsy and her family attending a midnight mass. Let’s just say that he ends up causing a horribly embarrassing commotion during the service.

Meanwhile, Chris is trying to impress his team’s star quarterback by attempting to score a supply of weed, which leads him back to his childhood home turf in search of the enigmatic drug dealer Mr. Green (Michael Shannon), a deadpan existential philosopher who proves to be as fascinating as he is inscrutable.

When not getting into a fight with a pair of drunken louts wearing Santa Claus costumes, Ethan finds himself at a party where his former flame Diana is hanging out with Mindy Kaling’s Sarah, an uninhibited co-worker who has a visceral dislike for Isaac.

One of the funny bits is how Sarah’s cell phone gets switched with Isaac’s phone, with some hilarious complications for both parties, particularly when Isaac reacts to messages from a man posting photos of his private parts.

The journey of “The Night Before” is meant to represent the closing of one chapter in life and moving on to the next level of adult responsibility. Not surprisingly, Seth Rogen’s Isaac is mostly humorously challenged in transitioning to respectability.

As to be expected in this type of comedy, there’s plenty of room for hit-and-miss gags and slapstick silliness, and while some of the humor falls flat, other situations are preposterously and outrageously funny.

In the end, “The Night Before” is somewhat uneven but will likely appeal to fans of the genre and films that pair up Seth Rogen and James Franco.    

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.