The morning after
Take two aspirin and go see ‘The Hangover’
By Lisa Miller 06/11/2009
The Hangover,” directed by Todd Phillips, uses a familiar set-up but takes advantage of timing and pacing to brilliant effect, with gags beginning and ending at optimal moments. Phillips has carefully crafted respites between back-to-back laughs and crazy set-pieces that allow the comedy to stew in its own laugh track.
Four slightly naive middle-aged friends plan a bachelor party in Sin City. The four say they’re off for an evening of wine-tasting in Napa Valley because they feel the women in their lives would disapprove of a Vegas jaunt. This deception is the one and only smart thing they do.
Promising to treat his future father-in-law’s vintage Mercedes with kid gloves, Doug (Justin Bartha), kisses his fiancée goodbye and gathers up his three buds for a last hurrah. They are Phil (Bradley Cooper), a teacher stifled by his routine life and staid marriage, Stu (Ed Helms), a nebbishy dentist catering to a shrewish girlfriend, and finally, the bride’s weirdo brother and the trio’s wannabe friend, Alan (Zach Galifianakis).
Once inside Caesar’s Palace, the guys pressure poor Stu to put a $4,000 penthouse suite on his credit card, offering halfhearted promises to pay him back. From there it’s a short trip to the hotel roof where they can overlook the Strip while toasting their impending adventure and downing hits of ecstasy. This is also where all memory ends.
Cut to the following morning, when the camera slowly pans a wrecked suite surveying each passed-out occupant in various stages of undress. A chicken pecks through the debris. Alan, clad only in a jockstrap and short T-shirt, encounters a tiger in the bathroom. Phil hasn’t yet noticed the yellow hospital bracelet on his wrist but Stu has discovered he is missing a front tooth. Strange cries lead the men to an infant in the closet, but Doug, the soon-to-be groom, is nowhere to be found.
Given its proximity to Los Angeles, Vegas surely plays host to many a high-spirited bachelor and bachelorette blowout. “Hangover’s” genius is peering at Sin City through puke-colored, morning-after glasses.
The film casts supporting players Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis in starring roles. These experienced funnymen function as comedic bookends. Helms is an exterior comic while Galifianakis is funny on the inside. The senses are strangely tickled by Helms’ horsy face, big teeth, gangly limbs and an ability to croon a smooth ’40s groove tone. Galifianakis, a bearded Pillsbury Doughboy, strikes a pose and lets us see the grinding of every goofy gear in his character’s creaky mental machinery. Working in concert, they exert a push-me pull-you effect, turning each gag inside out and back again. Watching them reminds of what was best about Laurel and Hardy.
Efforts to find Doug take the trio on a wild tour of Vegas’ underbelly. Among other developments, the trio meet a sunny hooker (Heather Graham), a surprisingly subtle and scary Mike Tyson, tangle with a prancing Asian gangster (Ken Jeong), and spend time at a wedding chapel — all the while lying to their women back home.
There’s less profanity than you might imagine and, beyond a brief glimpse of a female breast, the nudity consists of gelatinous male derrieres. By the time a shaggy dog tale such as this ties up its loose ends, we’re left with an inevitable movie hangover. But Phillips has one last surprise — a photo gallery revealing the guys’ wild night out in glorious detail. Think of this final tactic as the comedy-movie equivalent of “the hair of the dog that bit you.” It has a bit of a snap, and it tickles.
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