The Hangover
I suppose, in its way, director Todd Phillips’ “The Hangover” is the grown-up version of Judd Apatow’s “Superbad,” another film about that pesky transition from adolescence into adulthood. And, of course, by adulthood, I mean manhood.
Apatow has always had something of a soft spot for his man-boy protagonists. Occasionally, however, that something dissolves into outright sentimentality — see “Knocked Up’s” annoying insistence on making an honest couple/family out of slacker Seth Rogen and young professional Katherine Heigl’s characters — and it is always to the detriment of the story.
Worse, it stops being funny when you realize that the boys are having all the fun at the expense of underwritten female characters in the service of helping guide some slacker male character toward maturation and a better understanding of what it takes to be a man instead of a dude.
That “The Hangover,” a film about four dudes doing the bachelor party thing in Vegas, manages to avoid those missteps means a couple things.
First, that Kevin Smith should take note before he makes another film about 30-somethings tackling the pressures of growing up. And, two, that “The Hangover” just might be the funniest movie of the year starring Zach Galifianakis.
Galifianakis sneaked under mainstream’s radar for some time now, and there has always been a question of how his awkward pauses, facial tics and dry humor might work in narrative form.
Like all things comedy, Galifianakis is about timing, and “The Hangover” gives him room to play, creating a character so awkward, so graceful in his social ineptitude, that the film dances gleefully around him.
Such as it is, the film’s plot is really just an excuse to get Bradley Cooper’s character, Phil, away from the wife and family life he despises. The same is true of Ed Helm’s, Stu, the poor sap — and dentist — who has the unfortunate pleasure of dating an emasculating shrew who cheated on him with a bartender on a cruise ship. The plan is to throw Doug (Justin Bartha) a bachelor party he will not forget.
As it actually turns out, Stu, Phil, Doug, and Doug’s brother-in-law-to-be, Alan (Galifianakis) manage to forget the entire night. And, to make things just a bit more interesting, the gang wakes up to find a tiger in their bathroom, a baby, Alan naked from the waist down and Doug missing.
What follows is a bizarre and hilarious cross between “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Dude, Where’s My Car,” “Superbad” and “Very Bad Things.” It works, for the most part. Somehow, Todd Phillips takes the best parts of those films and makes them cohere into something resembling a genuinely funny unapologetically politically-incorrect buddy film.
Aside from showing us how horribly unfunny a movie can be, 1999’s “Very Bad Things” also taught us that bachelor parties in Vegas tend to end badly and how seedy things can get. “The Hangover” is both relentless and clever on this point. Having Phil, Stu and Alan lose all recollection of the previous night’s events turns the rest of the film into a clever mystery, the secrets of which are as unknown to us as they are the characters on screen.
So, when Alan straps a baby to his chest and heads out in search of his missing friend with Phil and Stu at his side, it makes sense in a wacky way. After all, what would you do if you woke up and discovered a baby in your hotel room, and you had no idea how it got there?
If you are in “The Hangover” and your name is Alan, you will most likely slam a car door into said baby — accidently, of course. You will probably leave the baby in a police car that you commandeered with the windows up under the assumption that this car is safe place for any baby.
This, of course, is to say nothing of the tiger mentioned earlier, the stripper, sorry, the escort (Heather Graham) that Stu marries on a whim or Stu’s conspicuously missing tooth.
Oh, and the movie is really, really funny.
Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Justin Bartha–to a lesser extent thanks to his limited screen time–really bring their A-game to what is essentially a better-than-B film.
Cooper seems to have perfected the selfish jerk role with relish, and watching him deliver his pronouncements on marriage, sex and life is as sidesplittingly funny as it is offensive to people who take offense to such things.
Helms nails that goofy, lovable loser so well that one wonders just how much art imitates life in his performance. His “slave to domesticated life in suburbia” shtick is especially charming, particularly when juxtaposed with Cooper’s unabashed disregard for all things domestic and suburban.
In the end, “The Hangover” is an offensive, raunchy look at a topic that seems to be a preoccupation with comedy these days.
I do not know how many more films can be about a group of 20-, 30-something male characters learning to put the bong and X-Box away long enough to settle down with a nice girl.
If anything, Galifianakis makes “The Hangover” worth the eight bucks to see his special brand of offense and awkwardness collide with Cooper, Helms, and a very small Asian man. May the best man win.
Grade: B+
