'The Hangover' Review
The drinking comedy is not generally a genre that graces its new releases with an aura of quality, even though this particular sub-genre has been playing a prominent role in American movies since the early days of Charlie Chaplin, who seemed to stagger around like an obnoxious drunkard anytime he was running low on ideas. There are towering classics in the genre that have come out over the years – Animal House, Caddyshack, Dazed and Confused, The Big Lebowski, Old School (ok, maybe not all the classics are exactly towering), Sideways, and my personal favorite, Strange Brew, to name just a few – but this particular genre is right around the level of horror movies as far as high expectations. In general, I don’t expect to see a well-made film in either genre more than two or three times every ten years or so.It should be noted, then, that at the time of this writing, The Hangover is at #139 on the IMDb’s list of the 250 greatest films ever made. It won't stay on that list for long, but it may have made it's way there because of how accurately it presents that disorienting fog that creates so much suffering on the morning after a hard night of drinking. Unfortunately, this is also one of the movie’s few real problems. It derives all of its comedy from the mysteries involved in waking up not knowing where you are or how you got there or where your friend is or what happened or why there’s a tiger in the bathroom and an infant in the closet. But it captures this confusion a little too well, and who wants to experience that without even having had the fun of getting hammered the night before?
[caption id="attachment_43388" align="alignleft" width="360" caption="Su, Phil, Alan, and Doug (offscreen somewhere)."]
[/caption]So here’s the rundown of the plot – Doug (Justin Bartha) is about to get married, and he and his three friends go to Vegas for one last night of debauchery before the wedding. His brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galafianakis) is a fat bearded slob who reaches for laughs with the long arm of his social ineptitude. Stu (Ed Helms) is a dentist who is whipped into shape by his overbearing wife, forcing him to lie to her and say that they are going on a trip to the wine country of Napa Valley rather than Vegas, and Phil (Bradley Cooper), is a strange mixture of contradictions. He has movie-star good looks and gives an impression of responsibility as an elementary school teacher, but he steals field trip money from his kids to fund the drunken Vegas adventure and doesn’t have a scrap of respect for his own wife and kid.
But the comedy in this movie comes not only from the crazy things that happen when the poor guys wake up in the morning, but also in the irony of it all. The guy who is getting married the next day disappears without a trace, the fat, greasy ball of irresponsibility ends up carrying around the baby they found in the closet, all of Phil’s handsome confidence leaves him completely bewildered and confused, and Stu, the geeky dentist, wakes up missing a tooth. And married.
[caption id="attachment_43393" align="alignright" width="371" caption="Always beware of goofy Korean caricatures when opening a noisy trunk."]
[/caption]The movie is surprisingly good at making one of life’s most uncomfortable experiences hilarious, but the fact that it is a drinking movie is a little bit of a drawback. When it comes out on DVD, it will be one of those movies where you bring all your buddies over and get nice and drunk watching it, and it strikes me as a little odd to get drunk and laugh at the suffering that you’re all going to be going through about 10 hours later. But at least we can all take comfort in the fact that, as long as we keep at least some semblance of control over our binging, we won’t find ourselves mysteriously missing, married, toothless, getting punched by Mike Tyson for being in custody of his Bengal tiger, or driving a stolen police car. But if those things have to happen to someone, I’m going to go ahead and say that I’m glad they made a movie about it.
The Bean Meter
[caption id="attachment_43399" align="aligncenter" width="303" caption="4 Beans out of 5."]
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