"Beer in Hell" a torment of unfunny antics

An accurately self-described "asshole," Max also co-wrote the screenplay for this effort, which, like his literary output, makes little effort to depict him in any but the most unflattering light. The film opens Friday via Freestyle Releasing.

The story involves Tucker (Matt Czuchry) recruiting his best friends -- soon-to-be-married straight arrow Dan (Geoff Stults) and bitter, recently dumped Drew (Jesse Bradford) -- to a private bachelor party at an apparently freewheeling strip club several hundred miles away.

Things don't go quite as planned, of course, with Dan -- who has lied about his whereabouts to his trusting fiancee (Keri Lynn Pratt) -- winding up in a drunk tank after being beaten within an inch to his life, and Drew, whose hatred of the female species is constantly being expressed in the most explicit terms, becoming emotionally involved with a good-hearted stripper (Marika Dominczyk) and her young son.

Meanwhile, Tucker manages to fulfill his real aspirations for the road trip, which involve, among other things, a hoped-for sexual liaison with a dwarf.

Despite a long, rambling mea culpa in the form of a wedding toast that Tucker delivers near the film's end, the character is irredeemable. This wouldn't matter so much if he displayed an iota of rakish charm, but, as less than charismatically portrayed by clean-cut Czuchry, he's not someone who audience members are likely to embrace as an overgrown Ferris Bueller.

Crudely filmed by director Bob Gosse ("Niagara, Niagara"), the film is unfunny from first minute to last, and its half-hearted attempts at emotion merely underscore its general loathsomeness.