Movie Review - The Hangover

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A movie that promises a “wild and crazy night” is always a rough thing.  Get too wild and crazy and you weird people out.  Very Bad Things started off with a dead hooker.  It’s hard to get behind the “heroes” of your film when they’re killing hookers…especially as a starting point.  Conversely, don’t go far enough and your story isn’t worth telling.  So a movie like The Hangover is truly a special thing.  It promises a wild and crazy ride and, surprisingly, it delivers.

Justin Bartha plays groom-to-be Doug.  His groomsmen take him to Las Vegas for his bachelor party.  It’s the same loose configuration of friends, acquaintances and future in-laws that bachelor parties always consist of.  Bradley Cooper is Phil, a pretty-boy looking to escape his wife and child for the weekend.  Stu (Ed Helms) is single but on the verge of becoming engaged to Melissa, a shrew of a woman played by Rachael Harris.  And rounding out the group is Alan (Zach Galifianakis), a socially inept loner of a man-child. 

The premise of The Hangover is brilliant in that we see none of the debauchery that takes place.  The film completely skips the bachelor party itself and takes us directly to the group waking up/“coming to” the next morning with a missing groom and no memory of what transpired the night before.  They spend of the rest of the film attempting to find Doug and figure out just what happened.  Where did the abandoned infant come from?  Why is Stu missing a tooth?  Why is there a tiger in their bathroom? 

One of the biggest rules of writing is “show, don’t tell.”  Completely subverting that crucial (and typically accurate) guideline is risky.  But, it works here.  It works so well, that you can’t envision the story any other way.  The film’s genius is that if we had seen these stories take place, they most likely wouldn’t have been very funny.  It would have felt forced and contrived.  They would have screamed “look at how over-the-top and wacky we are.”  And they certainly wouldn’t have looked as wild as they sounded.  But watching our heroes reassemble the last 24 hours is hysterical.  Each encounter begins with them facing the ramifications of some act they don’t know they perpetrated.  The humor is derived from their reaction to the situation and their attempts to surmise just what occurred.

Additionally, the film has the confidence to let things build.  The filmmakers know the true laughs won’t be coming from the outrageous adventure but from the characters’ reactions to said outrageous adventures.  Therefore they take the time introducing and establishing these characters.  Furthermore, they don’t just spring the discovery of wild antics on the audience.  The film has the patience and confidence to build.  We start with small discoveries that merely hint at the debauchery yet to be revealed.  Like a boiling a frog in water, they slowly immerse the audience in the antics.  It’s a tightrope walk.  Reveal too slowly and we’ll become bored; reveal too quickly and we’ll be incredulous.  The Hangover strikes a perfect balance.

For all the hedonism, the performances of the three leads (Cooper, Helms and Galifianakis) keep us grounded.  Cooper has been great in so many different movies but has yet to truly break out.  Helms always shines on The Office as Andy.  And Galifianakis is a brilliant stand-up that has been bubbling below the surface for close to a decade.  He’s in a role that seems intended for Jack Black.  However, he doesn’t make the mistake of mimicking his manic energy.  Instead he brings an odd wide-eyed innocence to his depravity.  All three actors convince us that they would do something crazy enough to be interesting but not off-putting.  The Hangover is bound to catapult all three leads firmly into the public consciousness.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with Old School being a 10 and Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation being a 1, The Hangover gets an 8.

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