The Stag

This broad, box-ticking comedy delivers all you might expect from a tale of high jinks on a bachelor weekend. Sensitive best man Andrew Scott (Moriarty in TV's Sherlock) organises a supposedly low-key camping trip in the Irish countryside, but things get out of hand as the bride's macho brother (co-writer Peter McDonald) leads the party into ever more outlandish scrapes. A few well-placed laughs are not enough to prevent director John Butler's film from following a tired and clichéd path (there are predictable scenes of boozy over-consumption and embarrassing nakedness) that elicits more weary groans than it does guffaws. Scott does well as the pivotal voice of sanity trying to rein in the boorishness, but is fighting an uphill battle against the shock for shock's sake misogyny and stereotypical supporting characters.