We’ve all had a night like this, sort of. At the beginning of the new comedy Dead Giveaway, Jill (Ruby Modine) wakes up after a night of partying with a strange man named Tom (Andrew Vogel) in her bed. Except that Tom is dead, with multiple stab wounds and Jill is covered in his blood. She’s hard on a cocktail dress, for sure. With a foggy brain that is pounding with a hangover, Jill desperately tries to piece things together while hiding the situation from her nosey roommate, Sarah (Suzann Toni Petrongolo), and getting ready for brunch with her bestie Lia (Mikaela Hoover). Ian Kimble writes and directs what amounts to a frothy, fluffy farce that could easily be stopped dead in its tracks had any of the characters acted sensibly. Thankfully the characters are way too much fun for us to start punching holes with logic and we just want to see where this goes.

So Jill is in a bind, with something in her bed that more resembles a block of Swiss cheese than a hook up. Lia arrives, hungry for salmon tartar and mimosas but is served a crime scene instead. Thankfully Lia is a ride or die type and she decides to help Jill figure out what happened the night before when the she and Jill were black out drunk. Things are already complicated enough with a room splattered in blood and an invasive roommate coming and going. But then a weirdo named Tony (Jeremy Feight) starts knocking on the door, and nice guy Mark (Buddy Caine) stops by with Jill’s wallet that she left behind at the party from the night before, looking for his missing brother.

Kimble knows how to build a situation. Layer by layer the scenario gets more and more complicated until it becomes absurd, always teetering on the edge of complete collapse. But what really makes the action work is the strong chemistry of the ensemble and Kimble’s direction. In lesser hands, the silliness would not only become cloying, but it would pretty much destroy the audience’s investment in what is going on. Petrongolo‘s Sarah hits the right level of credulity in her frantic housemate and still being suspicious. Meanwhile Modine and Hoover carry the film as Jill and Lia with their appeal and natural interplay. We also can’t forget to mention Scout Taylor-Compton‘s character Vicky who who shows up in the third act to offer more absurdity. These are almost people that you would want to hang with, sans the homicide.

Dead Giveaway is a breezy, bloody, farce that is well written, paced at a clip, and over before you have time to overthink it. Kimble knows how to keep the audience interested with a healthy mix of idiocy, insanity, and gore while the group of actors knows exactly what they are going for. I enjoyed Dead Giveaway for what it was. It’s the cinematic equivalent of one of those dangerous drinks at the bar that come with an umbrella. Sweet, dangerous, and enjoyable. Just no hangover.