History Film / HotTubTimeMachine

* BadFuture: Inverted, as the movie starts out in one. Nick works a dead-end job of cleaning dogs' anuses, Jacob [[BasementDweller lives in his uncle's basement]], and Lou's life is so bad, he attempts suicide. [[spoiler:At the end of the film, Nick lives his dream of being a musician, Lou becomes a billionaire by exploiting what he knew would happen after the '80s, Jacob lives with his rich father and Adam winds up the woman he loves.]]

A 2010 comedy film directed by Steve Pink (also known for doing ''Film/{{Accepted}}'') that features an ensemble cast including Creator/JohnCusack, Creator/RobCorddry, and Creator/CraigRobinson.

* BadFuture: Inverted, as the movie starts out in one. Nick works a dead-end job of cleaning dogs' anuses, Jacob [[BasementDweller lives in his uncle's basement]], and Lou's life is so bad, he attempts suicide. [[spoiler:At the end of the film, Nick lives his dream of being a musician, Lou becomes a billionaire by exploiting what he knew would happen after the '80s, and Jacob lives with his rich father.]]

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Nick puts up with his wife cheating on him but he ends up standing up to her, albeit while she's nine. He also has a bad temper despite his naturally passive behaviour.

* IChooseToStay: [[spoiler:Lou chooses to stay his younger self in 1986 [[TheSlowPath and relive his life]], instead of going back to 2010 with his friends. Adam also chooses to stay behind, but ends up falling into the hot tub during the return trip]].

* NotGoodWithRejection: In the original timeline, Jenny stabs Adam in the eye with a fork after he breaks up with her. [[spoiler: Considering she was going to break up with ''him'' makes it only worse]].

* JerkAss: Lou. He's very obnoxious and rude but that's justified because he's a ManChild. He undergoes some CharacterDevelopment and he finally lets go of his friends and accepts them for who they are making him a JerkWithAHeartOfGold.

* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Lou is Chloric, Jacob is Phlegmatic, Nick is Sanguine and Adam is Melancholic.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Lou is this for the gang. His nonstop obnoxious [[Jerkass Jerkass]] streak and overall sociopathic self-destructive tendencies that often put him and his friends in peril lead the rest of the gang to despise him greatly despite still choosing to hang around him. Even his own son and wife as seen in the sequel if Lou continued his ways found him to be a "virus" and want nothing to do with him.

* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Lou is chloric, Jacob is phlegmatic, Nick is sanguine and Adam is melancholic.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Lou is this for the gang. His nonstop obnoxious jerkass streak and overall sociopathic self-destructive tendencies that often put him and his friends in peril lead the rest of the gang to despise him greatly despite still choosing to hang around him. Even his own son and wife as seen in the sequel if Lou continued his ways found him to be a "virus" and want nothing to do with him.

* BromanticComedy: Its a male lead comedy and there are only a few female characters.

The last film to be distributed by Creator/{{MGM}} before its bankruptcy and reorganization as a pure producer and co-funder as well as the last film credited by Creator/UnitedArtists.

* NeverTrustATrailer: Nick's best line in the trailer, re: his fetish for ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'', isn't in the movie.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Lou. He's very obnoxious and rude but that's because he's a ManChild and he finally lets go of his friends and accepts them for who they are.

* FourManBand: Adam is the OnlySaneMan, Jacob is the SmartGuy, Lou is the CasanovaWannabe and Nick is the ButtMonkey.

The last film to be distributed by Creator/{{MGM}} before its bankruptcy and reorganization as a pure producer and co-funder.

* NoOntologicalInertia: Jacob, keeps flickering with ''video cassette static'' each time something endangers his very conception.

* NoOntologicalInertia: Played with with Jacob, who keeps flickering with ''video cassette static'' each time something endangers his very conception.

* MentorArchetype: Parodied with the repairman, who keeps dropping criptic references without ever directly informing the characters about anything and vanishing every time in the thin air when nobody is looking in his direction.

* NostalgiaFilter: At first Adam can't remember ''why'' he broke up with his old girlfriend, Jenny, and because he only recalls good things about her he believes that he made a huge mistake by dumping her. [[spoiler:Once we actually meet her in the past and find out how shallow and crazy she is, it's not hard to see why Adam dumped her. [[TheFatalist But he was still unhappy with the whole situation]]]].
** This applies to entire pack. They reminiscent their '86 stay in Kodiak Valley as the best weekend they ever had together. [[spoiler: But it turns out Adam ended up with a messy and painful aftermath of breaking up with Jenny, Nick's performance in the club was him badly covering "Never Dance Again" with everyone booing and worst of it all, Lou was not only left alone by his friends in the moment he needed them most, but was contemplating suicide for the first time]]. But since so many years have passed and they were originally piss-drunk most of the time, they only have a very vague recollection of how things played out.

* TheStoner: Adam has enough illegal drugs in his briefcase to overdose an elephant. [[spoiler: When he hits mashrooms, he turns even more eloquent than sober]].

* VomitIndiscretionShot: [[spoiler:Jacob pukes on Lou when the Bellhop's arm gets ripped off by a passing snowplow]].

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Nobody really likes Lou and his progressively more depressive acts and generally being hard to endure even for his friends. However Adam and Nick still do stick for him after he ends up in a hospital and take him for a nostalgic trip to Kodiak Valley.

* SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: Check, check, and check! The '86 weekend the trio had turns out to be an never-ending hard party with everyone getting laid few at least once.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Lou is this for the gang. His nonstop obnoxious jerkass streak and overall sociopathic self-destructive tendencies that often put him and his friends in peril lead the rest of the gang to despise him greatly despite still choosing to hang around him. Even his own son and wife as seen in the sequel if Lou continued his ways found him to be a "virus" and want nothing to do with him.

* LukeIAmYourFather: The unknown guy who impregnated Kelly when she was a sex-crazy teen? [[spoiler: It was Jacob, who was too drunk himself in the original timeline to remember even having sex with Kelly]].
-->'''Lou:''' I knew I hated you for a reason, I'm gonna tell everyone in prison I went back in time to kill my own father!

%% * AlmightyJanitor: Ok, Almighty Hot Tub Repairman.

%% * BiggerIsBetterInBed: Nick.
%% * BingeMontage: Happens right before the guys travel back in time.
%% * BloodyHilarious: [[spoiler: The bellhop ''[[OverlyLongGag finally]]'' losing his arm.]]

%% * ClusterFBomb

%% * TheFriendNobodyLikes: On Lou:
%% --> '''Nick:''' You know how every group of friends has that one asshole? He's our asshole.

%% * HeroicBastard: Jacob [[spoiler:,at least until Lou (who, it turns out, is Jacob's father) changes the past so that he and Adam's sister get married.)]]

%% * ItsNotYouItsMe: Played straight, both when Adam originally broke up with his girlfriend, [[spoiler:and again in the AlternateTimeline when ''she'' dumps ''him'' (which she was gonna do in the original timeline anyway)]].

%% * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: After Nick says, "[[TitleDrop It's some kind of hot tub-time machine]]".

%% * LukeIAmYourFather: This revelation comes as a shock to both Lou and Jacob.

%% * TheMasochismTango: [[spoiler: Lou and Kelly]]. And loving it!

%% * MentorArchetype: Parodied with the repairman.

%% * NeverMyFault: Adam has a bad case of this.

%% * NoOntologicalInertia: Played with with Jacob, who has perplexing ontological inertia.

* NotGoodWithRejection: In the original timeline, Jenny stabs Adam in the eye with a fork after he breaks up with her.

%% * PercussiveMaintenance: Jacob, when he starts going static.

%% * RippleEffectProofMemory: [[spoiler: When the gang comes back to the future, they have no memory of Lougle or the success that they have enjoyed for the last few decades.]]

%% * ScrewDestiny
%% * SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: [[spoiler:What the guys end up doing once they summon up the brass to defy the repairman and do things the way they wish they had. In the end it results in them all having much better lives than they did before]].
%% * SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: Check, check, and check!

%% * TheStoner: Adam has enough illegal drugs in his briefcase to overdose an elephant.

%% ** A particularly nasty one. For extra credit bonus points, it hits a squirrel.