(Dude, where’s our friend? No. Seriously. WHERE IS OUR FUCKING FRIEND!?)
CAST: Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifanakis, Justin Bartha, Ed Helms, Heather Graham, Sasha Barrese, Rachael Harris.
DIRECTOR: Todd Phillips
NOTE: Just as with HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, minimal spoilers with this one - and, yes, it can be considered a mystery.
Ah, the Road Trip. A great American tradition - right up there with Apple Pie, Beer Pong, Sneaking Food Into a Movie Theater Under Your Coat, and Forcing Your Boyfriend To Dress Up Like Russell Crowe in GLADIATOR. Okay, well, maybe that last one isn’t really a tradition so much as an illness, but whatever. Where were we? Ah, yes… The Road Trip. It’s a rite of passage for every American. Anyone who hasn’t been on one is probably a Russian sleeper agent. Mark my words. Check the credentials of those ten Russkies that just got booted back to the Motherland. I bet they have no fucking idea what a Road Trip is. Probably think it’s an ice cream flavor or a carnival ride. It’s downright un-American, I tell you.
And even more sacred than the Road Trip… is the Las Vegas Road Trip. Yup, driving to Vegas for the weekend - or longer - is like shooting down an extremely long water slide and then slamming into the pool: (1) it takes awhile to get to your destination, (2) there are lots of twists and turns, (3) and, eventually, you end up soaking wet and laughing like an orangutan on crack. The question is: soaking wet with what? Well, let’s just say that the top 4 answers (survey says!) are: (1) water, (2) alcohol, (3) sweat, and (4) very sticky body fluids other than sweat.
THE HANGOVER starts out with a road trip, then turns into a “boys-gone-wild-in-Vegas” comedy, then turns into a “race-against-the-clock” mystery. Our heroes are: (1) Phil (Bradley Cooper), a hunky teacher who’s wrestling with the idea of being married-with-child, and is the ringleader of his wolf-pack because he’s, well, the hottest; (2) Stu (Ed Helms), an uptight dentist who insists on using his doctor title like it was part of his Christian name, and who has a naggy girlfriend who puts the “itch” in “bitch” - as in “you just wanna scratch her fucking eyes out”; (3) Doug (Justin Bartha), a reserved nice guy whose impending wedding is the reason for the their sojourn into the desert and Sin City, (4) and last - for a good reason - is Doug’s future brother-in-law, Alan (Zach Galifanakis) - a social reject who favors tight white pants, man-purses, and inexplicably wearing jockstraps as underwear - and who generally seems a-okay with being pegged as a gay Sasquatch.
Suffice it to say, we’ve got a colorful crew here, folks - and thank Jehosaphat, too, because if there’s anything worse than driving alone to Las Vegas, it’s driving to Las Vegas with four Vanilla bastards.
So, our heroes arrive in Sin City, and before you can say “Ooops, there goes the Credit Card bill” they decide to upgrade from two Double Rooms to… one Fucking Stupendous Suite With A View of Heaven. As they get settled into their sleek (but highly unaffordable) new digs, Stu calls “the bitch” to let her know that they’ve arrived. Except it turns out that Stu lied to her and made her think that their road trip was to Napa Valley.
Clearly, in addition to being an insufferable banshee, his girlfriend is also a moron, because anyone who takes: (1) four guys, (2) bachelor party plans, (3) close proximity to Las Vegas - and adds it all up to get (4) a goddamn road trip to Napa Valley is someone who is in dire need of an IQ transfusion. Phil is chagrined to learn that Stu had to stoop to lying to be able to come with them, and basically tells him to deep-six “the bitch.” Stu, for his part, responds in the way of all hen-pecked and pussy-whipped men: he stands up for her and says “she’s not that bad!” Right. And Lorena Bobbitt was just a little careless once with a knife. Stu’s loyalty would be touching and admirable - if his girlfriend hadn’t already been established as a carnivorous incubus with venom for blood.
Anyhow, the boys put on their best duds and get ready to paint the town. Before they can get their party on, though, Phil invites them up to the roof of the hotel, where they: (1) admire the view of the Las Vegas strip, (2) share a toast in honor of Doug’s impending execution, er, nuptials, (3) and discover that Alan is truly fucking weird, as evidenced by his botched attempt at a blood pact which has the other guys nervously glancing at each other - as if Hannibal Lecter had suddenly forgotten he hates Vegas and decided to go slumming.
Cut to the next morning, when the camera pans across the Fucking Stupendous Suite With a View of Heaven. Except now it’s a Fucking Nasty Suite Littered With Empty Cans And Bottles With a View of Alan’s Bare Ass. In short, the place looks like your average frat house after the Kegger To End All Keggers. Stu - missing teeth, by the way - is the first to wake up, then Alan, then Phil.
Oh, and Phil wakes up because Alan trips ass over tea-kettle over him - and I don’t mean “ass” figuratively, since Alan’s jockstrap seems to have been abducted by the aliens from Area 51 nearby. The reason for Alan’s clumsiness? Oh, not much. Just a Bengal tiger hanging out in the bathroom when Alan attempted to drain his lizard.
As you can imagine, seeing a Bengal tiger a mere six feet away from you - when you are wrestling with a full bladder and a hangover that would register on the Richter Scale - is pretty much as traumatic a sight as you can ever dream up. Besides walking in on Celine Dion and Mike Tyson in a compromising position, that is.
To add to the overgrown fanged feline in the bathroom, the boys discover an infant in a baby carrier in the closet. And given that (1) they are all men, (2) men can’t get pregnant, (3) and even if they could conceive they wouldn’t be able to give birth that fucking fast - then (4) the baby obviously doesn’t belong to them. Oh, and just because things aren’t interesting enough, Doug is also missing. Which normally wouldn’t be an issue, but he’s getting married in two days and will likely be missed. Oh, and just because all that is really not interesting enough, none of them remember a single thing about the night before. And you thought you’d been on some benders…
Forced to turn into The Hardy Boys With A Baby, our trio of drunks and their mascot are thrust into what amounts to a really fucked-up scavenger hunt/mystery puzzle as they try to piece together the events of the previous evening - before the wedding day hits. And this is where I get off the train - and where you just have to unravel the mystery on your own.
Allow me to just share a few tantalizing tidbits: (1) the boys somehow managed to score an, um, interesting mode of transport, (2) they find themselves terrorized by an Asian mafioso who looks about as threatening as my dry cleaner, (3) Stu discovers that he ended up marrying “a woman of ill repute” (hooker - work with me, people), and (4) she’s played by Heather Graham - who is what all hookers in Vegas should look like. Otherwise, why leave L.A.? Anyhow, I will reveal no more, because - just as with a mystery with shocking revelations - a clever comedy with some nifty twists up its sleeve should be similarly safeguarded. May the Excedrin Be With You.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Smart, sharp, and sinfully funny, THE HANGOVER succeeds because it’s so relatable. It takes a situation that we’ve all been in - waking up and not remembering the night before - and uses it as a springboard for some truly inspired lunacy. And if there is anyone out there who has never woken up and struggled to remember what happened the night before, may I suggest you try it now? Because it’s practically another Great American tradition. Look it up.
What’s great about THE HANGOVER is how “real” the guys are. Phil, Stu, Doug, and Alan are “everymen” but also larger than life, at the same time. Look around at your buddies, and I’m sure that you can fit their personalities into at least one of these guys. The actors playing them are clearly having a blast and mesh with each other well. You really buy that these dudes would be hanging out with each other. Bradley Cooper as the leader of the pack combines leading man good looks and charisma with subtle comic timing. Justin Bartha inverts his normally relentlessly droll persona and plays the “straight” man of the group. Ed Helms manages the neat trick of making his character attractive and dorky at the same time. But the film is almost stolen from them by Zach Galifanakis, who makes Alan so memorably loony and bizarre that you find yourself waiting eagerly for him to show up in-frame to do or say something that will have you laughing silly.
Bottom line: THE HANGOVER is a modern comedy classic. It manages to stay just within the confines of what’s believable, and in doing so, makes the stuff happening onscreen even more funny because - with the just the slightest twist of fate - you can see you and your friends falling prey to the same circumstances. Unlike HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, which - while very funny - doesn’t reach the crisply-humorous level of THE HANGOVER because at some point it starts to become a little, well, silly because of its patently unbelievable twists and turns. THE HANGOVER plays it straight and real, and as such, never becomes silly.
And watch out for those end credits…. > )
