For the most part, this raucous, drug-fuelled comedy from Jonathan Levine – director of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) and Warm Bodies (2013) – is a standard issue buddy comedy with plenty of rowdy behaviour and sometimes very funny gross-out moments. But towards the end it crosses the boundaries into EOFFTV territory with a number of small but disarming fantasy moments – and to explain what they are there will, inevitably, be spoilers along the way, so be warned…

On Christmas Eve 2001, Ethan Miller (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) loses his parents in a car crash and is comforted by his two nest friends, Isaac Greenberg (Seth Rogen) and Chris Roberts (Anthony Mackie). The group decide that they’ll spend every Christmas Eve in New York together from now on, often searching in vain for the possibly mythical Nutcracker Ball, a Christmas Eve party with a fearsome reputation for hedonism and. As Christmas 2015 approaches, the three men are preparing to spend their last Christmas Eve together. Chris has becomes a successful and popular football player with a huge social media following and Isaac is married to Betsy (Jillian Bell) and has a baby on the way, But Ethan hasn’t fared so well – he’s a struggling musician eking a miserable living as a waiter and has recently broken up with Diana (Lizzy Caplan). Ethan steals three tickets to the Nutcracker Ball from a guest at a party he’s working at and, armed with a box full of drugs given to Isaac by Betsy, they set out to find it.  Along the way, they buy more drugs from their former high school dealer, Mr Green (Michael Shannon), run into Diana and her friend Sarah (Mindy Kaling) at a karaoke bar, Isaac’s behaviour becomes increasingly out of control the more drugs he takes and Chris is ripped off by a Christmas-hating fan (Ilana Glazer). As their search for the Nutcracker Ball continues, they are unaware that they are being watched over by a celestial being…

As well as taking a more fantastical bent at the end, The Night Before – which remains commendably cynical most of the time – gets a tad sappy with the boys deciding to settle down and give up their childish ways, but for much of the time it’s a decidedly unfestive affair.  It’s at its funniest when it’s casting a sceptical eye on the season’s festivities and is revelling in its characters’ wild hedonism. If you want weighty insights into the human condition, thorough deconstructions of male friendships or clever new takes on the festive season you’re definitely in the wrong place. It’s a not a film that’s trying to break any new ground, it’s certainly not subtle and it’s not the wittiest of films, but sometimes all you need is a belly laugh and on that score it delivers just enough.

Levine and his co-writers Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir and Evan Goldberg tip in all sorts of references to the likes of Big (1988), Die Hard (1988), Home Alone (1990) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) among others. It’s never wise to tip your hat to much better films as it often just underlines how far from greatness your film is but here the references are brief and at least tie in with the story and aren’t just there because the makers feel like showing off a bit. But be under no illusion – The Night Before is an enjoyable enough timewaster but it’s not in the same league as the films it winks at.

The three leads are fine, though Gordon-Levitt and Rogen are really retreading old ground, playing minor variations on characters they’d already played perhaps once too often. Mackie is more impressive, and the trio certainly attack their roles with real relish, particularly Rogen. Female characters are rather side-lined, just there to facilitate the three men’s redemption. Bell, Kaplan and Kaling enter into the spirit of the thing and seem to be having fun with their roles but it’s Miley Cyrus’ self-deprecating cameo near the end that will probably make the most impression (James Franco is also on hand and playing a bizarre but rather funny version of himself).

Perhaps the best performance comes from Michael Shannon as the drug dealer Mr Green. He’s not in it much but he’s playing nicely against type, sending up the brooding intensity that he’d made his trademark and provides the film with its biggest fantasy moment, when Green is revealed to be a guardian angel watching over the trio for many years. Like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life he leads his wards to redemption and earns his wings and is last seen at the North Pole listening to his father Santa Claus (Tracy Morgan) – the theological implications of all this are mind-boggling… – reading the story of the film to a group of young elves. There are other fantasy moments here and there along the way – a stoned Isaac has a conversation with the life-sized wooden figures in a nativity scene outside a church and they answer back and in a similarly inebriated state her imagines Betsy with the face of a dragon.

Ultimately, how much you’ll enjoy the film will come down to how likeable you find the three flawed but essentially decent lead characters and your tolerance for often crude humour. It teeters on the edge of schmaltz in the closing straight, the wayward exuberance of the three men finally “tamed” as they’re welcomed into the world of relative normality and domestication, but it still just about works. For all the crazy sex, drug-fuelled mayhem, vomiting in churches and hedonistic parties it ends up rather touching.

There’s very little in The Night Before that you haven’t seen many times before, but it’s done well enough to keep you hooked for hundred or so minutes. It’s never going to supplant the likes of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) in the hearts of those looking for a few festive laughs and its deliberate bad taste will alienate as many as it amuses.