The bachelor’s bash
KATHMANDU: The wicked, witty and shocking Judd Aptow has inspired but not made The Hangover which is about the night before a wedding when the groom’s friends take him out for a drunken orgy.
This time it’s to Las Vegas and as we all know, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”. Only this time the events are so bizarre that should they come out they wouldn’t be believed.
Says Pete Hammond, “The Hangover is a raucous summer comedy aimed at the fraternity boy in all of us.
Three groomsmen take their friend on a bachelor party to Las Vegas, only to wake up in a post-drunken stupor the next morning with no memory of what occurred the night before. With an abandoned baby crying in their hotel suite’s closet, a roaming tiger in their bathroom and a completely AWOL groom, their lives suddenly become very
complicated as they try to find him after a drunken drug
filled night before the wedding bells start to ring.
The Hangover features a smart cast of deft comic actors who try to make the most of a terrific premise. Bradley Cooper is winning as Phil, a smarta** high school teacher out for a good time with his buds. Ed Helms is funny as Stu, a pussy-whipped dentist who doesn’t normally stray far from his own overbearing girlfriend (Rachael Harris). The hip alternative comedian Zach Galifianakis is Alan, a rather gross, unkempt brother-in-law to be for the groom. As the missing husband-to-be Doug, Justin Bartha doesn’t have a whole lot to do because for most of the running time he’s, uh, missing. Heather Graham brings a sweet, relaxed quality as a stripper who hooks up with Stu, and Ken Jeong plays it as a fast-talking, low-life criminal who claims the gang owes him $80,000.
In a clever bit of casting, former boxer Mike Tyson also turns
up for some action, but
proves that as an actor he’s not a heavyweight.
The pitch for The Hangover from screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore plus director Todd Phillips throw their credibility card out the window in ridiculous scenes with taser-crazy cops, hyped-up Asian mobsters and stereotypes run amok.”
Adds Neil Smith, “’Do you know where the Best Little
Wedding Chapel is?’ asks one of the clueless heroes of Todd Phillips’ raucous latest. ‘Sure,’ says a testy doctor from the Las Vegas Emergency.
‘It’s on the corner of ‘F*** Off’ and ‘Get a Map’.
As that exchange proves, however, there’s oodles of verbal humour as well, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore’s inventively profane script missing few opportunities to tickle the funny bone as it charts the deranged aftermath of the ultimate Sin City stag night.
Marking a return to the sparkling form of Phillips’ earlier Road Trip and Old School, this thoroughly entertaining, often hilarious tale of three groomsmen sifting through the wreckage of a debauched evening that has left one of them (Ed Helms) missing a lateral incisor and all of them missing a groom (Justin Bartha) certainly delivers its fair share of ribald fratboy comedy.
It’s this that sends them and Doug’s future brother-in-law Alan (a film-stealing turn from stand-up comedian Zach Galifianakis) on a manic odyssey down The Strip that sees them minding a baby, bonding with a stripper (Heather Graham).
The ensuing shenanigans are convoluted enough to fill two pictures, which probably explain why a follow-up is already in the works. The gags wouldn’t land half as well, though, if we didn’t engage with Phillips’ protagonists as they stagger blearily through their waking nightmare.
Indeed, it’s knowing we’ve all been there that ensures we do.”