The Hangover Review [2]

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 06.09.2009

The Hangover might be the best comedy you will see in 2009.

Directed by Todd Phillips
Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

Cast
Bradley Cooper ... Phil
Ed Helms ... Stu
Zach Galifianakis ... Alan
Justin Bartha ... Doug
Heather Graham ... Jade
Sasha Barrese ... Tracy Garner
Jeffrey Tambor ... Sid Garner
Ken Jeong ... Mr. Chow
Rachel Harris ... Melissa
Mike Tyson ... Himself
Mike Epps ... Black Doug
Jernard Burks ... Leonard
Rob Riggle ... Officer Franklin
Cleo King ... Officer Garden



Rated R for pervasive language, sexual content including nudity, and some drug material.


After two extremely lackluster movies in School for Scoundrels and Starsky & Hutch, it appeared as if the promise Todd Phillips showed in Old School was just a fluke. With The Hangover, Phillips redeems himself of any wrongdoing and earns a reprieve from me even if his next film is a flop.

Simply put, The Hangover is the best comedy I have seen in a very long time. It is this year’s Pineapple Express and is better than even that movie. This movie is a machine gun firing a joke a minute and has very few misses. I have never laughed as hard throughout an entire movie, start to finish, as I did with this one. This is maybe a perfect comedy.

To start, the cast rises to the level of the script and turns in pitch perfect performances.

Bradley Cooper - Cooper won me over with his performance in the Clive Barker adaptation, Midnight Meat Train I was so impressed with his talent that I was disappointment to see him drift back into chick flick land with He’s Just Not That Into You. He is solid in that movie as well, but I wanted to see him in something geared more for guys. The Hangover is exactly what I was waiting for. For fans of Old School, his character, Phil, is the Vince Vaughn of the movie. He is the party guy, always talking about how he hates living the married life and always looks for an escape. He is a school teacher who starts off the movie conning his students into paying for the bachelor party to Vegas by lying to them about needing money for a field trip. He is the one who will always get the “good guy” in trouble and is perfect in this role.

Zach Galifianakis - If you have not heard of this man before now, you will be a huge fan after seeing this movie. Part of me sees his character Alan as a Seth Rogan type character, and don’t be surprised to read that in the coming weeks. I see a better comparison, and it is meant with all the respect in the world. Galifianakis is the next John Belushi. He is willing to do just about anything for a laugh, no matter how stupid he looks doing it, but at the same time looks like he is on the edge, ready to explode. He is loose in the head but just wants to be accepted by his new friends. He plays his character, a simple minded man whose own father proclaims there is something mentally wrong with him, in such a low key manner that it makes everything he does come across that much better. Galifianakis is a star waiting to explode and this might be the breakout performance elevating him into the stratosphere.

Ed Helms - Helms plays Stu, the more straight laced of the bunch. He might seem like the nerdy stereotype but there is a lot going on under the surface. He is just as much a party animal as his friends but has been so badly beaten into submission by his girlfriend he is almost stripped of his manhood. Helms portrays his character well, sitting on the edge of a caricature but always making you believe there is something under the hood. You are able to relate to him as much as anyone else in the movie. He reminds me of a mix of Cameron (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and Egon (Ghostbusters) and is the character we watch transform most throughout this film.

These three men accompany Doug (Justin Bartha) to his Bachelor Party in Las Vegas, Stu and Phil his best friends, while Alan is his fiancée’s brother. We don’t know much about the men except that Phil is a devious, underhanded teacher, Stu is a pussy whipped dentist and Alan is not allowed within 200 feet of neither a school nor a Chucky Cheese restaurant. They are given the keys to Doug’s soon-to-be father in law’s (Jeffrey Tambor) prized car and set off for Las Vegas.

When we start the movie, we understand something bad has happened and then flash back three days to the start of the trip when they check into Caesar’s Palace and share a toast, on the roof, with Jaeger shots to the night that lay ahead. Flash forward to the next morning when Alan wakes up to find a chicken, a tower of beer bottles, another tower of Balls Energy drinks, a tiger and a crying infant in their suite. To make matters worse, Doug is missing and no one has any memory of what happened the night before thanks to the fact they were all slipped roofies. They must then retrace their steps from the night before and figure out what happened to Doug before he misses his own wedding.

The scenes and the setup are done masterfully. Alan, obviously a sex offender of some sort, is tasked with taking care of a small baby. Stu, who has decided to propose to his mean spirited dominating girlfriend, might have married a prostitute. Phil might have been responsible for stealing a police car as well as Mike Tyson’s pet tiger. Tyson himself sings Phil Collins and proves, with a devastating jab, that he just might “still have it.” Nothing is a stereotype and you almost believe these men could be your friends. Then a strange little Asian man jumps out of the trunk of their car, beats them up with a tire iron, and runs off.

The journey leads them to a hospital, a police station, a wedding chapel and Mike Tyson’s house as they try to piece together the mysteries of the night before. To reveal too much more would spoil the surprises that come. When all is said and done, and we reach the wedding (which should be no spoiler in this sort of movie), I lay witness to possibly the greatest wedding singer since The Wedding Singer. Finally, while the end credits roll, we witness a photo montage from a camera that happens to have recorded all their escapades in a very graphic, very funny, and often very disgusting series of events.

I saw the movie in a theater mixed with groups of guys as well as couples on dates. The laughs during the movie were loud and long. I noticed that everyone, male and female, were laughing at the same scenes. I thought this could be the next great guy comedy but it transcends those limited boundaries and is simply a great comedy, period. Even my wife, who shares very different cinematic comedy tastes then I do, found this to be one of the first movies that made her laugh from start to finish. The humor ranges from visual gross out gags to well set up jokes to simple “what the hell did he just say” jaw droppers. The fact that the men who wrote this movie also wrote Rebound amazes me. This movie is miles above any comedy I have seen in a long time.

It may seem I am pouring it on a little heavy, but this film deserves it. I watch a lot of movies and it takes a lot to garner this much enthusiasm. For a movie to make me laugh as much as this one did must be applauded. This movie is filled with original comedy unlike any I have seen before and that should be commended as well. This movie is not, as many comedies these days strive to be, a Judd Apatow carbon copy. This is an original, well written, masterfully performed comedy that might be better than anything even Apatow has produced.

If the entire purpose of a comedy is to make you laugh, The Hangover is the perfect comedy.

The 411: The Hangover takes a funny idea and makes it hilarious. This is Todd Phillips’ masterpiece, eclipsing even Old School by a mile. The cast is first rate. Bradley Cooper is going to be a huge star and I hereby proclaim Zach Galifianakis the second coming of John Belushi. The jokes fly by a mile a minute, whether it is a well played one liner, a gross out sight gag (Galifianakis leaves nothing left to the imagination by the time the credits role), or situations which continue to get more and more ridiculous as the movie wears on. Even the small roles, such as Mike Tyson’s appearance to Ken Jeong’s Asian mobster who thinks Alan being fat is hilarious, are spot on. There is nothing wrong with this movie at all. It is a perfect comedy and has set the bar very high for future comedies to reach.

Final Score:  10.0   [ Virtually Perfect ]