Mark Kermode, Observer film critic 

The Stag review – ‘good-hearted Irish comedy’

A stag weekend gone wrong is the basis for a surprising amount of comic depth, minus the excesses of the Hangover franchise, writes Mark Kermode
  
  

The Stag: a comedy that won't leave you with a nasty aftertaste.
The Stag: an 'innocuous' comedy that won't leave you with a nasty aftertaste. Photograph: Allstar Photograph: Allstar

Owing a debt to the creaky Brit-pic Staggered in which Martin Clunes woke up bollock naked on a remote island on the eve of his wedding, this innocuous but good-hearted Irish comedy finds a misfit group of men going native in the woods when a fussy groom is strong-armed into a stag weekend by his altogether more forceful bride. The fly in the ointment is his future brother-in-law, a destructive irritant played with more comic depth than you might expect by co-writer Peter McDonald.

Inevitably relieved of their clothes, the men bicker and bond, with old rivalries and new acceptances blossoming among the bared buttocks and breast beatings. A long-running gag about the awfulness of U2 turns out to have a disappointingly soft centre (Bono would approve, which is a shame) but at least it won't leave you with the foul taste of a Hangover.

 

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