Monday, June 8, 2009

Movie Review: The Hangover

The Hangover was funny. That's basically it, pure and simple. I saw the movie tonight, and I laughed basically from beginning to end - even during the ending credits. I probably haven't laughed that hard at a movie since Beerfest. As you can clearly tell, my taste in movies is extremely high-brow.

When four dudes head to Vegas to celebrate their friend's impending nuptuals with an epic bachelor party, a sequence of increasingly improbable events leaves them waking up hungover and completely oblivious to the events that transpired the night before. The character of Stu, played by Ed Helms (Andy Bernard from The Office) is awakened by a rather indifferent chicken to a hotel room that has been, in a word, trashed. There's a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in a closet, and none of the guys - Stu, Alan (Zach Galifianakis), or Phil (Bradley Cooper) - have any idea how they got there. Worse yet, the bachelor himself, Doug (Justin Bartha), is missing without a trace. The trio sets out to piece together the scattered fragments of their wild, alcohol and roofie-induced evening and figure out just what the hell happened.

The movie is offensive, crude, irreverent, and hilarious. The plot is extremely similar to that of Dude, Where's My Car? but...come on - who gives a shit about Dude, Where's My Car? That movie was a piece of shit. This movie, on the other hand, was inspired comedy. Even the ending credits were awesome. The photographs that more or less fill in the details are as funny as anything that actually happened during the course of the film. I did wish they had explained where the chicken had come from - while you don't see any chicken in the pictures, you do see some cock. See what I did there?

I think the character of Alan, a socially-inept man-child, stole the show. This was actually my first experience with comedian Zach Galifianakis and I have to say - he was delightful. Everything he did and everything he said was guaranteed to make me burst out laughing. Clearly I have been missing out here.

The movie went for laughs at every opportunity no matter how cheap or juvenile they were. There were plenty of unanswered questions even with the photo slideshow at the end. For example, just how did they manage to steal that cop car? How did they find out where Mike Tyson lived and how did they get into his house? These questions alone guarantee to me that the DVD is unquestionably going to be a worthwhile purchase. I can't wait to add it to my collection, but before that I'll definitely be seeing it in theatres at least once more.

For once, I have to say that Roger Ebert summed it up best: "Now this is what I'm talkin' about. The Hangover is a funny movie, flat out, all the way through. Its setup is funny. Every situation is funny. Most of the dialogue is funny almost line by line."

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