"Like a diuretic bee, Todd Phillips’ latest comedy is all buzz and no sting. The jokes are good, but we’re left waiting for one last swift kick in the nuts that never comes. "
Over-hype can ruin just about any movie experience. The Hangover is especially susceptible to pre-screening praise. If you discovered it on your own time, without any trailers or water cooler brouhaha, you'd smile at its gold nugget excellence and claim it one of the cutest adult fairytales of the year. As it stands now, the conceit has been blown out of proportion. Sure, it's as good as Tom Hanks' Bachelor Party was back in the day. But bloggers with no recollection of the past have already claimed The Hangover a classic with a near epic conclusion. They've reveled in the less than truthful fact that it will simultaneously destroy both your gut and throat in heaves of hearty laughter. Sure, it's funny, but never to the degree you've been led to think. The barrage of TV ads and on-line reviews has given everything away but the ending, so there are no real surprises lurking beneath its velvet toupee. The film never manages to reach the same dizzying heights as Old School, but if you stay away from the advertising and chatty, self-righteous critics, you might be one of the lucky ones who can hold this vulgar valentine close to the heart.
The Hangover follows closely in the footsteps of comedies like Keanu Reeves' The Night Before, Danny Leiner's Dude, Where's My Car?, and Martin Scorsese's After Hours. It even has a little dash of Christopher Nolan's Memento thrown in for good measure. It's as much a mystery as it is a character study in friendship analysis, but be careful. If someone spills the ending, you'll be ruined. It's not an over glorified twist, like that found in The Sixth Sense. But most of the humor rests on the built up to that last fifteen minutes. And if you already know where this trio of fool hearty kings is headed, you might just give up the ghost and stop caring. As I said in the first paragraph, it's probably best that you stay away from all spoilers (including the copious amount of clips that have raided the Internet). For The Hangover to truly work on all cylinders, it needed a trailer not unlike M. Night Shyamalan's ninety-second teaser for Unbreakable.
The film acts as the perfect sequel to Bachelor Party, as it follows the misadventures of three grown men the day after celebrating their best friend's last free moments as a swinging single. They wake up, oblivious to the night before. There is a baby in the closet, a tiger in the bathroom, and the groom-to-be is missing. This is all set up in the lobby poster, verbatim. The one thing that doesn't make any sense? How could they have possibly functioned through a blackout that has zapped their collective memory? That is a question soon answered, but it is one of the few revelations not yet made public, so I won't be spoiling it for you either, as it directly ties into the location of their missing buddy. Waking up to burning chairs, free roaming roosters, and more empty bottles than a bums shopping cart, our heroes never take a moment to stop and really think about their late night antics. Instead, they are off and running around Vegas; attempting to clean up the vomage with a ripped, wet rag.
The set pieces come fast and furious, as one lone joke directly ties into the next. The Hangover is a neatly stacked line of dominoes that twists and turns. It's exciting to watch them fall in unison, but there isn't much left to the imagination. There are no caves or hidden valleys. Despite its pedigree, we're dealing with a fairly pedestrian work. The film's sole charm rests on its very capable cast of comedic stalwarts. There isn't one marquee name in the bunch, but that will most likely change once audiences get a load of these guys. They have chemistry to spare, and it's hard to imagine this lax material working in the less resistant hands of someone else.
Bradley Cooper is Phil Wenneck, the alpha male. His buddies look up to him, and he tries to get the job done. But it's mostly a wash on his part. Cooper is hilariously cool, fumbling in a manner that hasn't yet been seen by his less handsome counterparts. Ed Helms, who you may know as Andy from The Office, plays the put-upon fret with the bitch-nag fiancee. He's the one constantly calling home, lying about his shenanigans, always under the thumb of an ice queen. Helms is the voice of reason that never gets heard. He is a worrywart, yet his drunken behavior may have been the most outrageous of all. Then there is Zach Galifianakis. He is one of the driest comedians working the circuit today, and he shines as an improvisational sub genius in a role that may have easily washed into the background. His adlibs are funny, because he never thinks they are. You never get a sense that he is trying to provoke or elicit a laugh. He is simply rolling through his business as it comes, and in the process offers up a skewed worldview that will make your eye twitch. It's an interesting group, to say the least. And their chemical spill is combustible.
It's easy to see why Warner Brothers has already greenlit a sequel. Any average script could put these three guys through its paces, and we'd still be left with something worth watching. There is a quantifiable magic that happens when all three guys are on screen, and it barley matters at times what they are doing. Yet, that comes as my biggest problem with the film. Having already been spit-washed in this type of notorious, hand-waxing praise, I kept expecting the momentum to get bigger. I wanted it to run wild and out of control. I wanted one excellent moment to arise from the ashes of their highjinks and yell in my face, "You Got Served!" Sadly, that moment never comes, and the biggest foible is that "the night before" seems to have been more fun than the aftermath we are left with. There is strong evidence of that during the end credits. But to say anymore would ruin all the fun for you fine folks who haven't yet seen the movie.
The Hangover is good. Heck, it's actually great. But it never quite reaches the tip of the mountain. Maybe Part Two will fulfill those fantasies of an untouchable classic. Until then, The Hangover gets a Whoop-doo! In the range of B-.
(All of B. Alan Orange's reviews are based on the Boo! or Whoop-doo! evaluation system.)
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