The Hangover

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha, Rachel Harris, Mike Epps, Ken Jeong, Jeffrey Tambor, Mike Tyson & others.
Banner: Warner Brothers Pictures
Producers: Todd Phillips and Dan Goldberg
Director: Todd Phillips
Script: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
Cinematographer: Lawrence Sher
Music: Christophe Beck
Editor: Debra Neil-Fisher


Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) have planned the best ever Bachelors' party for their soon-to-be-wed pal Doug (Justin Bartha) - a trip to the city of sinful indulgence Las Vegas! Phil is hot-looking, but there ends the hottitude. He is in fact a boring high school teacher, eerily devoted to his wife and kids! Stu is a dentist, over-anxious about everything and completely enslaved by his fascist girlfriend (Rachel Harris). Alan is the bearded brick-stupid dunce in the bunch. Doug is your run-of-the-mill groom - shaky about walking down the aisle, but looking forward to it anyway! So this happy bunch, excited about what Las Vegas holds, speeds off in a convertible with Alan enthusiastically screaming, "Road Trip!" [Road Trip happens to be a movie by Todd Phillips, the director of this comedy extravaganza as well.] They arrive at the hotel, and just when you get ready for the guys to embark on scene after scene of silliness, the movie cuts to the next day.

Obviously groggy from a day of lavish intoxication, the groom's men wake up one after the other. Their expensive hotel suite is wasted. There's a tiger in the bath, a baby in the cabinet, Stu has lost a tooth, there are the most ridiculous things strewn around the rooms. But the most prominent change is the absence of the groom! They search through the debris [because that's the kind of mess they've made of their rooms,] but there is absolutely no sign of him. They sit down to think where he might be, but they don't have a clue as to what tricks they had been up to the previous day! Where do they start looking for Doug? What do they do with the wild cat in the tub? And whose baby is it staring up at them? And what's that vague memory of a Las Vegas chapel that keeps popping up in their mind?

The movie is not downright, roll-on-the-floor-in-laughter funny. But still, there are some brilliant moments of humour that bring on the laughter. The hangover scene is more amusing than funny, but amusing in a good, entertaining way. It just establishes the fact that we the audiences are yet to tire of movies that deal with the boorish and immature behaviour of grown men. Had Todd tweaked a few sequences and smoothed a few rough edges, we just might have enjoyed the film much more, not caring for the fact that we have seen the same display of male dumbness several times before. But what this movie has, and that its predecessors do not, is a fun cameo by Mike Tyson! The lead actors of the movie are the main reason we don't sigh as they go about their silly ways. Bradley, Ed and Zach keep us in raptures throughout, while throwing us in splits from time to time when the script seems to slacken.