Random Movie: The Hangover (2009)

Las Vegas. Muse for many a film maker. From the not so good, to The Hangover. I assumed that this film would be some kind of hybrid of Dude, Where's My Car? and Very Bad Things. It surely, is not. Because it was actually funny.

Basically we have 4 guys going to Vegas for a blowout before Doug (Justin Bartha) gets married. Doug's character is pretty much irrelevant to this review, as they lose him, and spent the mojority of the movie trying to find him while piecing together the events of the previous night, which they all cannot remember. You have Stu (Ed Helms), who basically freaks out at everything, as he is very tightly wound around his girlfriend's (Rachel Harris) vagina and does not wish to upset her. Also, there is Phil (Bradley Cooper, dreamboat), who apparently is a dirtbag to all the women in the film, but is oddly the most level headed and calm in most of the chaos that is going on. Finally there is, Alan (Zach Galifinakis, Fat Jesus, not Phat Jesus) who is just a slight bit odd, and possibly a retard (emphasis on "tard"). With all your hilarious character defects in place and someone to offset them, the movie can begin.

What I liked about this movie, was when everyone wakes up in the hotel room the morning after, there is all kinds of lunacy happening. A tiger, a chicken, a smoking chair, a baby. My first thought was, "this movie will never successfully explain all of this to me in a plausible fashion." But it actually does, and without even being that outlandish. Let me just say, as every other review does, the chicken is never explained, so I will just assume it is a comedy device. I mean, as we all know, chickens = comedy gold. I did have a couple of questions, such as, if they did not remember last night, then how did they remember where Mike Tyson lived? Also, why take the raw meat in to the bathroom and then shut yourself in? Why not just throw it in there and get out? On the whole, though, the movie is pretty decent. Once the funny starts, it stays funny the whole time. The process of discovering what happened last night was actually well done too. One thing carries you into the next, maybe pausing for a few moments to get some comedy in there. This easily could have gone on for way too long, but I feel like the length of the film is quite perfect, and it ends the search for Doug in the right spot. Zach Galifinakis pretty much stole the movie, from the way he stands with his hand on his hip, to his matter of fact delivery of his quirky dialogue ("Is there a payphone bank? Buncha payphones? Business.").

This really is a decent comedy, and the style of comedy runs the full spectrum, from physical (naked guy jumping on people), to foul language (females saying "suck my dick" always makes me laugh), even muscial, as the Dan Band plays the wedding at the end, and I am convinced that they should be in every wedding scene in every movie that has one. I think that some people may think this movie is much funnier than it actually is, but you can certainly do very much worse. I definitely recommend it.