Plot: Four men go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Three of them wake up the next day and can't find the groom. Complicating things is that they are so hung over that they can't remember anything, one is missing a tooth, there is a tiger in the bedroom, a baby in the closet and they have a police car instead of the one they drove in with. They have one day to find the groom and find out what happened before the wedding.
The Hangover is an interesting film to review. It is unbalanced and pretty straightforward visually, however there are parts that are pee in your pants funny. Even though there is plenty to fault from a cinematic point of view, it's hard to give a movie that makes you laugh so hard a bad review.
This is a film that I was hoping didn't give away all the funniest moments in the trailer. The Hangover definitely didn't fail me in that aspect. That is why all the points found in the trailer are in my plot summary above. There are plenty more laughs and insane situations that you definitely won't see coming. The interesting thing is that all of this craziness is wrapped up in a pretty straight forward and understandable way, which is kind of refreshing and makes everything that occurred a little more believable.
There is a reason I chose the movie poster above, and that is because Zach Galifianakis absolutely steals the show and is the reason why I would recommend this movie to people outside of the target audience of the studio. His delivery and screen presence is fantastic and I was very happy to see him deliver on the big screen as I've been a fan of his for years. He seems to make even the more immature and vulgar moments more intelligent.
One of the biggest issues I have with The Hangover is it's continued use of offensive words that basically have no point. Those words are the 'F' word for homosexual and the 'R' word for people with a developmental disability. This is one of the problems I had with Todd Phillips' Old School as well, during the opening scene when Luke Wilson enters the taxi. These words are more casually tossed around in The Hangover, but still with no real comedic point. I can imagine the argument from the writers is that the type of people portrayed in the film would use words in real life. The problem with this is that the film isn't a drama or a character study, it's a comedy. Simply using the words without a situational reason, simply isn't funny. There is one instance where the 'R' word is used in a modified way by Zach Galifianakis' character and it's actually funny because its used in context with his character and we're laughing (hopefully) at the character's awkwardness.
Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now. The Hangover would actually be an interesting film to dissect on many politically charged levels, but I simply don't have the time. I'll leave that for more adventurous film classes. The bottom line is that The Hangover is laugh out loud funny on plenty of non offensive levels. I could go on talking about specific moments, but that would ruin all the fun for you. I'm looking forward to the dvd to see all the hilarious out takes there are bound to be. Make sure you stay for the beginning of the credits as well for some more raunchy fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment