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Synopsis
Two days before his wedding, Doug (JUSTIN BARTHA) and his three friends (BRADLEY COOPER, ED HELMS and ZACH GALIFIANAKIS) drive to Las Vegas for a blow-out bachelor party they’ll never forget. But, in fact, when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning, they can’t remember a thing.
For some reason, they find a tiger in the bathroom and a six-month-old baby in the closet of their suite at Caesars Palace. The one thing they can’t find is Doug.
With no clue as to what transpired and little time to spare, the trio must retrace their hazy steps and all their bad decisions in order to figure out where things went wrong and hopefully get Doug back to L.A. in time to walk down the aisle.
The Hangover Becomes The #1 Comedy of All Time on DVD1/11/2010 9:57 PM EST Burbank, CA, January, 2010 - Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures' smash hit The Hangover has added another milestone to its record-breaking 2009 run. Since its release on Blu-ray and DVD on December 15th 2009 the film has become the #1 comedy of all time on the DVD charts with combined consumer and rental sales topping 8.6 million units with 1.5 million units coming from Blu-ray purchases...More>>
The Hangover Is The Biggest R-Rated Comedy Of All Time7/22/2009 9:28 AM EST As the box office numbers for the past weekend were tallied, most people were paying attention to the success of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the second week drop off for Bruno, but in amongst all those ticket sales there was another record being broken. Todd Phillips's The Hangover passed the $235 million mark domestically, making it the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever....More>>
The Hangover fits into a category that is somewhat fuzzy and defined as "guy movies". That is, there are few women, there is a lot of male-bonding, and there are wacky, usually R-rated hijinks (well, X-Rated, but what you see in the movie will be R). Also, usually in these movies, the main characters behave stupidly -- or at least hormonally. We are expected to be forgiving of men in pursuit of women.
In this case, the specific "pursuit" is the time honored bachelor party; and also in this case, wisely limited to the groom, his two closest friends, and a wild-card to-be-brother-in-law who comes along for the ride. The party, rather than taking place "at a strip club" or even "at various famous places in Vegas" happens instead off camera. The story picks up in an epically trashed hotel suite.
The groom is missing. There is a live tiger in the bathroom; a never-explained chicken wanders aimlessly; there is a baby in the closet. What happened? Where is the groom, and can the three friends get him back? What will they learn about themselves when they do? There is a guy (Ed Helms, who used his natural loss of a tooth do an utterly unnerving "I-lost-a-tooth" effect) who is in a bad relationship. Will he figure out he deserves better? There is the absolutely goofy guy (Zach Galifianakis) who has problems relating to people -- will he make it as one-of-the-gang? There is the cool-friend (Bradley Cooper) who feels he sort of made a mistake when he got married -- will he learn to appreciate what he has got?
And will they ever find the groom (Justin Bartha, who appears only at the beginning and end of the movie) alive?
It is a comedy and not an especially dark one, so you can figure out those answers yourself. However, and most meaningfully, on the way to those answers -- is it funny? Yes. It is hilarious. The Hangover does not rely on being especially clever as it is not. The humor is not sophisticated, but rarely stoops to slapstick. The surreal nature of the situation, the boys-night-out-turned-up-to-11, gives it enough of an engine that it keeps on moving without having to resort to humiliating its principals for laughs or to the lowest-common-denominator humor. I was waiting for the gross-out jokes, and there, thankfully, weren't many.
For its genre, The Hangover is a good spirited, comparatively intelligent, well orchestrated piece of work. It doesn't reach anything like a lofty height, or even a height itself, but certainly avoids the bottom of the barrel. For a movie category that usually lives down there? I give it a B.
You will want to stay through the credits to see the photos showing what happened during the guy's black-out. It's worth watching, and yes, Zach Galifianakis' scene in the elevator is prosthesis -- at least according to Wikipedia.
--Marco Chacon
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The Hangover was an unexpectedly funny “guy” movie, featuring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis, as three guys who take their friend and the groom (Justin Bartha) to Vegas for a bachelor party. However, the party goes epically wrong. When they wake up the next day, the groom is missing, the hotel is trashed in an utterly epic fashion, and they don't remember anything. They have to recover the groom, reconstruct their evening, and deal with dangerous criminals they seem to have upset.
The movie is darker than one might expect -- without actually being dark. It plays on the edge of a potential tragedy and has just enough hint of an edge to it to keep you guessing. What really makes it work is the incredible chemistry of the characters as they try to convince you that they are all good friends; that is, with the exception of Galifianakis, who is the bride's brother and is just along for the ride. The film hits a modern rite-of-passage element with men above their early 20's getting married; these guys are not just staring out, they have been around the block a little.
I am not usually drawn to movies that relentlessly humiliate their main characters; and while there are a few scenes in the movie that approximate that, for the most part, the characters are competent and able if caught in a nightmarishly complex situation. It also helps a lot that the script (Jon Lucas and others) is really funny.
The DVD release comes with an unrated version. I admit that I was not able to figure out exactly why it was unrated. There are several more minutes of video, but I was not able to figure out precisely what was cut. I think it is more that the unrated version simply wasn't rated to avoid an “R” rating. The extras are not bad.
We see approximately six minutes of gangster, Ken Jeong, acting totally crazy as he does different takes on each scene. There is a gag reel that has the usual actors-cracking-up bits, but also shows some behind-the-scenes stuff that is interesting, as well as funny. Also included is a map of "the destruction" with Vegas showing where the characters had their encounters -- this is fairly worthless. There is commentary of the three actors and the director that is quite good. Getting to hear the guys interact as actors is a good counter-point to their movie roles.
The expanded list of photos answer a key question: Where did the chicken come from? Apparently they picked it up in one of the clubs -- to feed to the tiger. The video of the three characters singing in the car might be somewhat cringe-inducing, but if you have sat through the movie, you could appreciate it. There is an action-montage -- all of the action stunts in the movie in quick succession -- which makes me think they were desperate for anything they could think of adding.
The sound and video quality is perfectly adequate for the kind of movie it is. If I could get this on Blu Ray, I am not sure how much better it would be. I learned several things watching the movie. Ed Helms went without a tooth for three months. Several different babies were used in the making of the movie, including a doll, which CGI, moved for the baby-hit-with-car-door scene.
The Hangover DVD (the two-disc edition) is a worthy edition for a movie that I found unexpectedly hilarious. If you are a fan, I recommend it.
--Marco Chacon
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Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
Two days before his wedding, Doug (JUSTIN BARTHA) and his three friends (BRADLEY COOPER, ED HELMS and ZACH GALIFIANAKIS) drive to Las Vegas for a blow-out bachelor party they’ll never forget. But, in fact, when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning, they can’t remember a thing.
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