“Remember, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except for herpes. That shit'll come back with you.”
The Story:
Doug (Justin Bartha) and his wedding party hit the road for a last minute Vegas stag party just two days before he is to tie the knot. He and two close buds are accompanied by his soon to be brother in law/self professed ‘one man wolfpack’, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) to have an evening they’ll never forget… if they could only remember. After waking up to a demolished $4000 a day villa, they realize their wild night out might have went a little too far. With the groom missing and wedding hour inching nearer by the second, the four bros struggle to cobble together the events of the previous night by retracing the most inebriated night of their lives through the bars, casinos, strip clubs and wedding chapels of Sin City to find their lost friend, get to the altar and make it out in one piece.
The Review:
The Review:
The Hangover’s trailer is the perfect example of how to completely ruin a film for its paying audience. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen The Hangover, which was my point of contention with the film upon first viewing. If not for two explosively funny, fortuitous scenes, there is little chance the film would have racked up quite the amount of hundreds of millions at the box office it accomplished. If you’ve been living under a rock and never watched the trailer, then The Hangover will be one of the funniest films you’ll ever see. If you have, it’ll be one of the funniest films you’ve seen before. Those scenes notwithstanding, The Hangover still excels at being one of the better comedies of the last 20 years, with its little story twist of having a group of hungover guys trying to rediscover their night of insanity instead of letting the viewer witness it with them first hand being the main draw to the show. This ultimately either detracts from or increases the element of surprise to the viewing experience, depending on the scenario.
Not the typical looking comedy, The Hangover boasts remarkable visuals of Las Vegas and crafty direction all around. The scenario itself is relatable to the vast majority of the drinking crowd and for that reason we form a bond with the characters, even if we don’t get to know them much and if their actions sometimes feel out of place. It’s also an interesting parameter with the lead character of the story gone for much of the running time. I’m not sure I really cared if he didn’t make it to his wedding so much as I hoped the boys could heroically make it back in time to just say they lived through the preposterous shit they encountered. There have been many raunchier comedies in the past with similar outrageous scenes, but no characters in my recollection have ever went on a bender this nuts. Since we’re learning what happened along with the characters, you feel slightly more involved with the plot compared to conventional storytelling and at other times, you really wish there would have been some flashbacks so we could have seen this all go down. Some of the funniest parts of the movie come as a result of surveillance camera footage and inevitable end credit photos and a little more of that would have been ideal. Getting told a story secondhand can only do so much.
Since The Hangover counts on the spontaneity of its twenty or so hair-raising plot points, it’s tough to spoil any of them to even make an example of how funny the film is; just trust me, you’ll love it and they are as crazy as your imagination can dream. You wouldn’t want the identity of Harry Lime in The Third Man spoiled for you, right? Luckily, the acting is aced in scene after scene with the characters of ever-cool, carefree Phil and oddball Alan standing out to be crowd favorites, while nerdy dentist Stu (Ed Helms) has a wife so annoying that you wonder how he doesn’t spend any spare moment he gets with Doug convincing him never to get married. Honestly, Phil is the kind of guy who could shrug off certain apocalypse with Cooper’s acting so dead on that you don’t doubt it for a second. I enjoyed The Hangover much more the second (or would it be third?) time around, mostly due to my own expectations being too high previously and not being totally convinced the memory loss of the characters was as interesting as experiencing the haphazard firsthand. The Hangover isn’t everything everyone says it is, but it’s damn close. And don’t you forget it. (Brett H.)
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