REVIEW: The Hangover (2009)
The Hangover
Rated: R
Runtime: 100 minutes
Starring: Justin Bartha, Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms.
My rating: 4 stars
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I desperately wanted a Superbad. I thought The Hangover would deliver a classic comedy that would stay with me for years. It does not.
The Hangover is simply a very funny movie. The difference between it and a great comedy is The Hangover only has fragments of a plot.
It's essentially a well-produced, high-budget sketch comedy show with the same characters.
The cast: Groom Doug (Justin Bartha), best man Phil (Bradley Cooper), friend Stu (Ed Helms) and brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis). They all travel to Las Vegas to throw Doug a bachelor party. After the first night, they wake up and remember nothing. There's a baby in the closet, a tiger in the bathroom, Stu is missing a tooth and Doug is missing altogether.
So they spend the next two days trying to find Doug before the wedding. The process unveils clues as to what the crew did the night before. It all leads to Doug's whereabouts.
The Hangover avoids the one thing I hate about this genre. There is never a hint of drama. It knows from the start is a ridiculous comedy that would never happen.
There isn't that slow moment where I felt like yelling at the screen, “Get back to the funny!” Instead, there were just unfunny moments. None of them came from Galifianakis.
For those who don't know him, you will soon. I have been a fan of his stand-up comedy for years. His movie choices haven't been great: Out Cold, Corky Romano, Bubble Boy, and Heartbreakers. This is the best movie of his bunch. However, he is usually brilliant in whatever role he plays.
Enjoy his performance in The Hangover because there isn't much else worth seeing. No plot, no character development, very few changes in anyone, and only moments of great hilarity.
It's humor is strange and gross, relying on shock instead of wit to invoke laughter. It gets a little old after a while, although right to the end there were jokes and scenes I didn't see coming. In the end, I just don't think I will remember much about the The Hangover.
Perhaps that's the point. We all go on a wild ride through Vegas, leave the theater exactly how we left it, and we don't remember a thing the next day. But we did laugh a lot and have one hell of a time. Four stars.
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