21 & Over Please...

Movie Review
by Lon Lopez

Hangovers, at least by personal experience, are harrowing episodes of nausea, agony and if you’re lucky the shakes.  I’ve known hangovers to stay with me for days and make me swear to never again, abuse the substances that made me that way.  But if there’s been long enough time between my last bad hangover and say an upcoming birthday party, I usually forget what a complete work over they do on my system.  Kind of like a Todd Phillips movie.  No, that’s not fair, because I like good Todd Phillips movies, mostly (ie: Road Trip and his defining Old School) but sometimes, like getting well vodka on a bad bender, you get an off Todd Phillips film (School for Scoundrels, Starsky and Hutch) and you just can’t shake ‘em.  So how does Phillips new film, The Hangover fair?  Well, if you’re calling Old School some top shelf Tequilla, The Hangover might find itself somewhere on the back counter.

That’s not to say that The Hangover isn’t good, or isn’t funny.  Because it’s both of those, however where The Hangover is at its weakest isn’t the fault of Todd Phillips.  Its biggest problem is the script.  Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (Ghost of Girlfriends Past & Four Christmases) The Hangover is an attempt at a good Todd Phillips movie but ends up just being a typical “What Happens in Vegas” style movie.

Which ones the funny one?

Once again, like Old School which centered around a straight man (Luke Wilson), a con man (Vince Vaughn) and a wild man (Will Ferrell), The Hangover centers around a douchebag (Cooper), a convicted sex offender (Galifianakis) and a wuss (Helms) who’ve lost the groom to be in one of the wildest nights of bachelor partying history.  The only problem is, they can’t remember anything from that night and are only left with clues and a mystery to solve before the wedding the next day.

Sounds like a fun enough premise and with the right cast and a better script, it might have actually worked.  The first part it falls apart is in its basic story telling.  Lucas and Moore create scenarios where our antagonists are constantly in peril and the impending deadline is looming.  That would work if the deadline were more ominous than the peril.  In this movie, our heroes are faced with gang violence, abandoned babies, kidnapping and a tiger attack.  If only they can survive those things to make it back to some chi-chi wedding in LA?  I don’t care if Uncle Saul and Aunt Bessie flew in from Poughkeepsi, I’m calling the F.B.I.

That was probably my biggest problem with The Hangover.  The deadline held little worth compared to the rest of the film.  It’s a wedding, big deal, fifty percent of them don’t last anyways.  It’s not like retrieving the missing video tape of you cheating on your girl that you just mailed to her (Road Trip) or saving the Fraternity and it’s pledges who just got kicked out of college and may have the rest of their lives ruined (Old School).  It’s a freaking wedding, not the end of the world.

Which one of us cares?

Helm’s Stu character is typical, taking a berating from his two timing fiancé to be, early on the film.  We’re to believe the guy is a push over in his life, but he’s a confident dentist and he holds his own with his guy friends and seems smarter than he’s actually acting, of course foreshadowing a moral victory to come at the end of the film.  Helms is likable in this movie, and his character is meant to be the straight man, but this film is not sure how to make the dynamic work, so Helms then becomes the neurotic one.

The only thing I can say about Galifianakis is creepy.  I’m sure that’s what they’re going for and for anyone that’s followed Galifianakis’ comedy, that’s what he does.  But to actually make him a pedophile who drugs people… well, I’m not sure if that’s funny just yet.  Making light of him going to a Jonas Brother’s concert and having him not allowed within 100 feet of an elementary school doesn’t say Old School to me… it says Little Children.  With that being said, Galifianakis is still good in the role, and provides a lot of the strange comedy in this film.  Meant to be the buffoon, Zach is no Will Ferrell, but he tries his best.

This is what it really looks like... a good one anyways.

Other than that, The Hangover drags.  Once the bits are set up there’s potential for comedy, but in between then, the main leads of the film aren’t especially likable and you find yourself waiting for them to just do something, anything funny, unlike Old School where you could just watch Vince Vaughn or Will Ferrell and be smiling on your way to a full out laugh.  The Hangover also has some nice surprises and a couple good cameos, including an appearance from personal fav Ken Jeong (Knocked Up, Role Models), and overall, I didn’t hate it, but it’s sad when the absolutely funniest part of the movie is the last thirty seconds as the credits role.

The Hangover is a satisfactory movie with a lot of laughs strewn throughout, but it just doesn’t ever fire on all cylinders at all during its runtime.  I could end this review with a lousy what happens in Vegas punch line, but that would only be playing in to what The Hangover was going for.  Fortunately, I’ve had funnier real life hangovers than this film and think I’d rather just go get drunk.