The Hangover Film Review 2009

With Doug (Justin Bartha) about to get married, his pals decide to throw a bachelor party to help him celebrate his tying the knot. After assuring his anxious fiancée Tracy (Sasha Barrese) that they're only going to drive from L.A. up to Napa Valley for a quiet evening of wine tasting, they borrow her father's (Jeffrey Tambor) classic Mercedes convertible but instead head straight for Las Vegas because "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

The Hangover’s opening is as disorienting as the first head-pounding saunter to the bathroom after a night of getting schnockered. Uh, wait, isn’t this a Todd Phillips movie? Shouldn’t there be goofy male bonding, not grim moments of failure?

In his funniest movie since Old School, Phillips generously serves up a comic cocktail – neat with a sidecar of Tabasco. Make no mistake: The Hangover is achy-face, lean-forward-and-clap funny, building to a delirious fever-pitch point. Tigers in bathrooms, naked Asian men with karate skills and Mike Tyson singing Phil Collins – among many other oddities – it would be doing something wrong if it didn’t.

Unfortunately, that champagne is the only thing any of Doug's groggy cronies can remember the next morning as they gradually awaken to the realization that he's disappeared into thin air. With their memories foggy, they look around the hotel room for hints as to what might have transpired. Stu is missing a tooth, Phil has a hospital bracelet on one of his wrists, and Alan finds a baby in the closet and a tiger in the bathroom.

Without ever letting on exactly where they are, Phil calls Tracy to inform her that, "We've lost Doug." When she reminds him that the wedding is in five hours, he matter-of-factly responds, "Yea, that's not going to happen." This is the urgent scenario established by The Hangover, a raunchy whodunit directed by Todd Phillips (Old School).

Zach Galifianakis Sashays Away with The Hangover, and Todd Phillips Finds A Certain Sweetness

While hardly a character study for Cooper and Helms, The Hangover affords them slightly more than conventional roles of smooth-talker and clenched nebbish.

Albeit with more profanity, Helms channels Charles Grodin’s rat-a-tat pessimism cheerfully enough that you root for him to somehow sow his oats. Cooper is a little slyer, learning hard responsibility lessons as the trio’s ersatz leader. (And they are hard lessons, thanks to tire irons, tiger claws and T-bone auto accidents.)

But this movie belongs to Galifianakis – a coincidental co-star of What Happens in Vegas (which, comparatively, is as tame as a Louie Anderson routine). It’s as if John Belushi went native, grew a bush on his face and crawled back to the city from the forest floor. (All the better to sell his uproarious “wolf pack” friendship soliloquy).

Alan has so many seemingly idiosyncrasies that Galifianakis could make an entire other film from them. He still uses a pager. He’s not allowed within 200 yards of a school … or Chuck E. Cheese. He inquires whether Caesar really lived at Caesar’s Palace. As Stu will later remark, “Don’t let that beard fool you. He’s a child.”

Each of Alan’s rib-tickling tics (mimicking Phil's mannerisms, bonding with an abandoned baby) feels like insanely inspired improvisation from Galifianakis – who lobs the gauntlet for supporting comedy roles for the remainder of 2009, and creates a character that’s flaky, but fiercely sweet.

Thanks in part to him, The Hangover can be forgiven its grenadine-splash of a coda. Phillips excels at freewheeling films that brim with ball-busting machismo. And yet, as in Old School, he seems to genuinely appreciate the assets of adult-male camaraderie, whether it involves a slap on the back or a fist to the face.

Just as a marriage is built on the strength of love and promises kept, so can a bromance. The Hangover honors and cherishes that idea in slickness and stealth, all the way to one of the most bugnuts end-credits montages ever seen.