There have been a ton of bachelor party themed movies over the years with The Hangover series and Bachelor Party being the most popular, but more often than not they miss the mark. The latest Stag takes their stab at the genre with Donald Faison leading the charge, but does it manage to deliver the goods?

Stag follows a guy who has always been known as the orchestrator of all the greatest pranks at all of his buddies' stag parties, but now it's his turn. Now he nervously waits his own fate that he is sure his buddies have in store for him, but the payback is more than he could have imagined. While this film is a far cry from the Hangover it does manage to be a fairly entertaining little film. With these kinds of movies there is an important decision to make and that is how far they are going to go. This means a lot to this genre as the more successful ones usually have no rules and push the boundaries in all areas. Here they played it safe for the most part and felt more like aspects of a TV movie as opposed to a real stag party. They were going for a more character ensemble comedy which is fine, but this setting kind of got thrown to the back burner instead of being the focus. Every time things seem to be getting going on the party side some story aspect interrupts it and leaves you hanging. Knowing that, everyone did a fine job with what they were working with, but just never really stepped out of average. There are some funny moments, but there are also some more drama-esque aspects that felt a bit out of place.

This isn't a horrible movie by any means, it is actually pretty entertaining, but there are just a lot of missed opportunities here on both sides of the story. For those expecting a hardcore bachelor party you will be sorely disappointed. There is only one piece of nudity and it is pretty quick and the hijinks are pretty tame, but if you can let that go given the subject matter then you will probably still have some fun.

Ken has quite a tradition of pranking his friends savagely at their stag parties. Now that Ken is getting married to Caroline, he's justly apprehensive about payback time.

Ken recounts some of the episodes, and Caroline starts to wonder about him.

Ken's friends are loading up on their own angst and anger (much due to Ken) before the party.

The setup for the stag party has many threads. Carl, the enormous screw-up, is to help protect Ken, but Carl has locked himself into an elevator prop. Luke is asked to pickup the stripper from work, but he's recognized by an old friend, and has to lie his way through it. Henry gets kicked out (that afternoon) of his own place by his girlfriend, whose already picked out someone else. So Henry is in a really good mood.

The stag party gets going slowly. Luke and Candy talk while they wait. Carl and the woman trapped with him talk while they wait. Paul and Henry talk as they wait. There is just one whole lot of talk while they wait.

Boredom factor is high. If I wanted long periods of irrelevant and not funny conversations, I would have sprung for a ticket to a third tier amateur theatre.

Ah, the stripper is just a fake, a blogger profiling them for their descent from manhood into drone-hood, or 'manopause'. Nice. Fits the rest of the film. Like everything else here, the film is flaccid and ineffective. The payback is an evening's boredom. Even the stripper's ever-so-short performance is turned into cold oatmeal. The only person who makes any traction is Carl, the most singularly useless character in the film.

Will anything come out of this stag party?

-----Scores-------

Cinematography: 7/10

Sound: 7/10

Acting: 4/10 Hm, hire actors next time, and a better screenwriter.

Screenplay: 4/10 Written by someone who hates viewers.

If you want a movie to play in the background while you do something else (talk, play games, knit, etc.),and look up every minute or two, then this is a good movie. So by no means a horrible movie, just don't expect it to grab 100% of your attention from start to end.

The movie hints at so much more, but it just seems to never really go anywhere, it just kind of flows with surprisingly few ups and downs, no real surprises, nothing overly crazy. The first 10 min of the movie by no means hints at what the rest of the movie will be like. The movie does have a positive vibe if that is what you are looking for...background movie.