The Hangover (2009)
Directed by Todd Phillips
When three friends finally come to after a raucous night of bachelor-party revelry, they find a baby in the closet and a tiger in the bathroom. But they can't seem to locate their best friend, Doug – who's supposed to be tying the knot. Launching a frantic search for Doug, the trio perseveres through a nasty hangover to try to make it to the church on time.
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29 films that influenced The Hangover
What critics say influenced The Hangover
At times, this feels like a slightly milder version of Peter Berg's generally reviled Very Bad Things , a 1998 black comedy also about a Las Vegas bachelor party gone grotesquely awry.
This is the customary set up for a bachelor-party-gone-haywire comedy, in the style of Peter Berg’s equally-ludicrous Very Bad Things, followed by the flashback to two days ago.
The box office success of The Hangover puts into interesting context another movie about a bachelor party that goes wrong in Las Vegas.
But this is a comedy — or it’s meant to be — and as much as I would have loved for the sense of the sinister inherent in this concept to turn into something deeply, blackly funny (I’m thinking of Very Bad Things as a possible precedent for this, but The Hangover is never so audacious), Lucas and Moore and director Todd Phillips (School for Scoundrels, Starsky & Hutch) go for the easy, cheap laughs, things that will shock a juvenile mindset — a mother breastfeeding?
This is not a dopey/sweet Vegas comedy, like the bland What Happens in Vegas, or a nasty/nihilistic one, like the putrid Very Bad Things (both of which, now that I think about it, starred Cameron Diaz).
The remaining three men spend the next day and a half trying to piece together exactly what the hell happened during their long blackout, and this is where Jon Lucas and Scott Moore's beautifully constructed screenplay really shines; instead of a blow-by-blow orgy of decadence, a la Very Bad Things, it's laid out like a murder mystery.
That is where Doug (Justin Bartha), who is getting married Sunday, is taken by his friends for an epic bachelor party: Phil (Bradley Cooper), a schoolteacher who hates his students almost as much as he hates being married, is the ringleader; Stu (Ed Helms), a wimpy dentist with a controlling shrew for a girlfriend, is the nervous nellie; Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Doug’s soon-to-be brother-in-law, is the spacey, grubby, possibly mentally handicapped one who recalls Will Ferrell in “Old School” (which means he also recalls John Belushi in “Animal House”).
The four guys are variations of the types of characters we’ve seen in these types of “guys being guys” films before, from American Graffitti to Animal House to American Pie .
(Or, further back, Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby where the “baby” is indeed a leopard.)
Despite the inconvenient appearance of a jungle cat, The Hangover is no Bringing Up Baby (the women are too dreadful or dumb, for starters).
Gunman's Walk (1958) could fit into Nicholas Ray's filmography with its saga of a stressed-out Western family, but Karlson finds his own kind of turmoil on the Hackett Ranch.
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The other films are more or less noir: The Brothers Rico (1957), with Richard Conte trying to keep his nose clean despite family ties; 5 Against the House, the silly but compelling mishaps of a group of college students trying to hold up a Reno casino (1955); the claustrophobic Tight Spot (1955), with star witness Ginger Rogers (!) hiding out in a hotel room with cop Brian Keith; and Scandal Sheet, Karlson's 1952 newspaper exposé starring Broderick Crawford as the unscrupulous (what else?) editor of a sensational big-city tabloid.
The other films are more or less noir: The Brothers Rico (1957), with Richard Conte trying to keep his nose clean despite family ties; 5 Against the House, the silly but compelling mishaps of a group of college students trying to hold up a Reno casino (1955); the claustrophobic Tight Spot (1955), with star witness Ginger Rogers (!) hiding out in a hotel room with cop Brian Keith; and Scandal Sheet, Karlson's 1952 newspaper exposé starring Broderick Crawford as the unscrupulous (what else?) editor of a sensational big-city tabloid.
The other films are more or less noir: The Brothers Rico (1957), with Richard Conte trying to keep his nose clean despite family ties; 5 Against the House, the silly but compelling mishaps of a group of college students trying to hold up a Reno casino (1955); the claustrophobic Tight Spot (1955), with star witness Ginger Rogers (!) hiding out in a hotel room with cop Brian Keith; and Scandal Sheet, Karlson's 1952 newspaper exposé starring Broderick Crawford as the unscrupulous (what else?) editor of a sensational big-city tabloid.
Drinkers and abstainers alike would've expected a giddier potion from director Todd Phillips, whose "Road Trip" and "Old School" are the "Mean Streets" and "GoodFellas" of men-will-be-boys comedies.
Todd Phillips ( Road Trip , Old School ) directed this low-brow but sporadically inspired movie, and it has already earned a reputation as the boundary-pushing comedy movie of the summer, thanks to word of mouth and clever preview trailers.
Helms’ henpecked rage recalls some of the male anxiety on display in Phillips’ much better Old School, but the screenplay by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, etc.) keeps getting in the way of any spontaneity or depth.
Previously behind the camera of comedies like “Starsky & Hutch,” “Road Trip” and “School For Scoundrels,” Todd Phillips appears to be content with his films being instantaneous rather than lasting, his only possible exception being “Old School” which remains greatly enjoyable even after first-time viewings.
While Judd Apatow had nothing to do with The Hangover, (it was smartly directed by Todd Phillips of Old School fame) it is nonetheless his progeny.
The Hangover was directed by Todd Phillips (Old School) from a screenplay by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore.
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Codirectors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson (who also voices the role of the friendly talking dog, Dug) borrowed the film's centerpiece image of a floating edifice from Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, but we could forgive them if Up had even a fraction of that 2004 animated fantasy's sense of enchantment.
Just as the Julia Roberts fairy tale Pretty Woman morphed from something, in its script stage, dark and harrowing to, on the screen, something sweet and cheery, this could-have-been foray into either the seamier side of life or the less-than-squalid but more-than-ordinary steers clear of ever getting near the truly treacherous.