Review: The Hangover

Groom-to-be Justin Bartha is dragged to Vegas for some debauchery-filled celebration by his buddies, and tagalong future brother-in-law Zach Galifianakis, a creepy chubby guy who is either stupid, mentally disturbed, or both. Bradley Cooper is the unhappily married, smug school teacher, whilst Ed Helms is the milquetoast dentist with a humourless harpy for a wife (Rachael Harris). Anyway, after a night of drinking, drugging and partying, they wake up in an expensive hotel room, with amnesia (which we soon learn is due to ingestion of the date rape drug- oh that’s hilarious!), a trashed room, a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in another room, and Bartha is nowhere to be seen. I think there might’ve even been a chook somewhere, too, but we never find out why, so who cares? Heather Graham is a sweet-natured hooker (there you go, the bitch and the whore both present in the one film. Hooray for women’s lib in the new millennium!) whom Helms apparently married the night before at a Vegas quickie chapel. Jeffrey Tambor plays Bartha’s future father-in-law, whose prized car is taken by the boys for their ill-fated trip (Gee, I haven’t seen that comedy cliché since “Ferris Bueller”. Oh wait, no, I saw it in “Sex Drive” too). Ken Jeong plays an angry, naked, presumably gay Asian gangster who somehow ends up in the back of the gang’s car.

This raunchy 2009 Todd Phillips (the not-bad Will Ferrell frat comedy “Old School” and the tolerable “School for Scoundrels”) comedy was the surprise hit of its year not only at the box-office but even most critics, some of whom proclaimed it the funniest film of the year. I laughed maybe twice. Moderately. Sorry, but I just didn’t get it. I loathed these characters. Cooper in particular was a totally smug, horrible person who shockingly was in charge of shaping young people’s minds, as a teacher. He actually makes a derogatory remark about them to his buddies and steals (presumably with intent to replace) their excursion money for his own use at Vegas. What a creep. I hope there are no teachers out there like him, comedy or not, he’s just revolting. Grubby-looking Galifianakis, in the film’s sad breakout performance, is even more objectionable. The film tries to mine laughs out of his off-putting, borderline personality disorder behaviour. He’s creepy, especially when we learn he’s actually a registered sex offender who is banned from being anywhere near kiddie restaurant Chuck E. Cheese.

Maybe people who like to get drunk and have experiences of waking up with alcohol-assisted amnesia will find these misadventures hilarious. I do not drink (and that’s no boast, just a choice), have never been drunk, and do not wish to. Why be a dumb arse? Why make yourself physically sick afterwards? Why is it fun? Why would I want to temporarily soften my mind? As such, I neither identified with any of these people nor their experiences. I could not identify with the central premise of waking up with a hangover and amnesia. I detested these people and was mostly bored by everything they went through, most of which was cliché anyway. Oh, let’s go to a Vegas strip club, geez, no one’s done that in a movie before...snore. I love naked women as much as the next guy, but I have little interest in strippers. They take their clothes off and...then what? Boobies are nice, and need to be seen more often on screen, but not just for a cheap, easy strip club scene. That’s boring, especially when ‘movie strippers’ rarely show anything below the equator anymore these days. And don’t even get me started on the drug use. Sure, there’s plenty of druggies out there, and I’m not quite as moralistic about it as many others might be. But, I mean, how many normal people snort cocaine? I didn’t even believe that these creeps were cocaine users, but here they were, snorting up like it was just the thing to do in Vegas. Was this meant to be funny? Why?

Everything is (comedically) cranked up to 11 on the scale of implausibility, which just made it even harder to latch on to anything. The premise might’ve been interesting if more grounded in reality, but this film wants to throw in crazy idea after crazy idea just for the sake of excess craziness. Of course, if any of this were funny, it’s implausibility wouldn’t be a problem, it might even be a strength, possibly. Sadly, the only things I remember laughing at are Mike Tyson playing air drums to Phil Collins (ruined somewhat by the trailers), Mike Tyson punching somebody, and an admittedly poor taste (but funny) scene involving a naked (elderly) hospital patient. A few more light chuckles here and there, but that’s it. The rest is a sleazy, unlikeable chore. Some of it was really repellent, such as the vomiting, which can have comedic value (“The Meaning of Life”, the slightly underrated “Repossessed” etc.), but not here. Ditto the tasering scene, which just stopped things dead and thanks to Phillips’ incompetent sense of comedy, is filmed painfully realistically. Not funny.

I am sorry but this is not a world I inhabit nor wish to. If the film could’ve made any of this entertaining to me, my general aversion to (or ignorance of) such things would be irrelevant. Good films will do that. This one doesn’t. The men are repellent, the women (save for Graham’s clichéd hooker/stripper with a heart of gold) unpleasant, and the entire film’s appeal was simply lost on me. And where was the raunchy sex? Oh right, we don’t have that in the new millennium, only (comedic) male nudity is allowed. My mistake. This just wasn’t for me, the hype was totally unfounded if you ask me. And it’s not just because the characters are unlikeable. “Funny People” didn’t have too many nice characters in it, either, but it had interesting people, and lots of interesting (and funny) things to say. It also had a genuinely affecting semi-dramatic story to it. And I like raunchy comedies as much as the next person, maybe even more so. Hell, “Revenge of the Nerds” occupies #32 on my Top 200 Films of All-Time List. I’m not even against silly, or unbelievable comedies- “The Blues Brothers” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” are my two favourite comedies of all-time. The best comedies manage to be gut-bustingly funny and feature characters you, if not like, at least find interesting or identifiable enough to spend 90 minutes or so with.

Look, if you’re one of the many who loved this film, good for you, but I’m gonna go take a shower and remove the icky feeling this film has infected me with. Worst of all? The end credits feature supposed photos that clue us into what actually went down the night before, and y’know what? It looks more entertaining than spending 90 minutes watching these creeps try and remember any of that stuff. Epic failure right there.

Rating: C