Waking up is never fun. Waking up in the same room as a tiger would really not be fun. Throw in an unclaimed baby, a stolen police vehicle, a missing tooth and complete oblivion as to the events of the preceding night and you’ve got yourself quite the heap of trouble.
The Hangover, an upcoming film from director Todd Phillips (Starsky and Hutch, Old School), has complexity that is uncommon for Phillips’s films. The movie introduces us to four guys on their way to a proper Las Vegas bachelor party, then chronicles the aftermath of the wild and eventful — but entirely forgotten — night.
Interestingly, though the film is centered around a bachelor party, the groom (named Doug) is rarely seen. His three comrades, rather, become the protagonists. Stu, played by Ed Helms (Andy from The Office), is a dentist and the responsible and slightly nerdy one of the group. An aviator-clad Bradley Cooper (He’s Just Not That Into You) is Phil, whose profession as a schoolteacher belies his status as the most badass and cool-headed of the trio. Stand-up comedy legend Zach Galifianakis shines as Alan, the socially unacceptable brother-in-law who is easily the group’s most WTF-inducing character. The three strike a perfect balance, but one such that we get to laugh at each character’s expense.
After a night of unknown debauchery, the three companions wake up to a room full of unsolved riddles and problems — most significantly, Doug is gone without a trace; most pressingly, there’s a freaking tiger in the bathroom. The groomsmen follow the few traceable leads they left themselves — Phil is wearing a hospital bracelet and their valet parking ticket gets them a police cruiser instead of Doug’s father’s antique Mercedes. The movie consists of the trio’s attempts to reconstruct the previous night and find Doug before his wedding goes on without him the next night.
The story takes some hilarious twists and turns — along the way, we run into Vegas weddings, roofies, Mike Tyson singing Phil Collins and a naked Asian man locked in the trunk of a car. The humor is driven equally by disbelief at the drunken antics that apparently occurred, sympathy for the poor guys as they discover how much trouble they’re in and belly laughs at the weirdness of Galifianakis’ Alan. The situations the groomsmen find themselves in are ridiculous and unbelievable, but that doesn’t particularly matter; this is a ridiculous, unbelievable movie. A few gratuitous details — namely a ransom subplot and the behavior of its villain — are a bit much and bring the comedy a little too close to idiocy for comfort. By and large, though, the mystery unfolds in an appealing manner with laugh-garnering developments along the way.
This film, while its humor is not exactly lofty, should appeal to a larger audience than most of its contemporaries. Though The Hangover contains many of the elements of your average stupid comedy, its plot structure, script and chemistry between the actors makes it legitimately entertaining on levels surpassing mere crude humor. It is likely that many who would enjoy the film won’t find their way into the theater because of the marketing and subject matter, which is a shame.