One Night at McCool's (2001)

One Night at McCool’s is a slick little noir-comedy that understands the oldest barroom truth: the same night can sound like three completely different stories depending on who’s telling it. The movie’s secret weapon is its playful, Rashomon-style structure, letting Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser, and a wonderfully deadpan Michael Douglas spin competing versions of the same chaos while Liv Tyler’s Jewel glides through it all like a smile with a switchblade hidden behind it. It’s brisk, nasty in a cartoonish way, and constantly amused by how desire turns supposedly sensible men into self-sabotaging poets and lunatics. Fair warning: it’s proudly R-rated—raunchy, violent, and mean-spirited at times—so if you like your comedies gentle, this isn’t your drink, but if you’re in the mood for a dark, twisty good time, it’s a surprisingly irresistible one.

One Night at McCool’s is trying to be a slick, twisty noir comedy about male obsession, told through three unreliable versions of the same femme-fatale disaster. The problem is it often confuses “clever structure” with actual wit, so the jokes can feel smug, the characters are intentionally shallow, and you may end up watching people make awful choices without anyone to truly latch onto. It’s also pretty harsh for a “comedy” (sexual menace, nasty violence, and a lot of profanity), so if you want light crime fun or a charismatic antihero to root for, this will likely irritate you. Still, if you enjoy dark, mean-spirited cautionary tales with a pulpy cast and a gimmicky, he-said/he-said/he-said setup, it can be an entertaining enough late-night watch.