Grumpy Comedy Reviews – The Hangover

Wow, two weeks in a row at the top of the box office. How does an R-rated comedy without Seth Rogen do that well?

If you’re director Todd (Old School) Phillips, you don’t just make a comedy, you make a movie. The Hangover, besides hilarious, is also a really well-made flick full of novel editing choices, a great soundtrack selection, and a clever narrative you wouldn’t expect to find in a movie about four dopey guys and their colossal hangover.

It’s sort of a mystery movie. We don’t see the fun night in Vegas, we see the aftermath, when the friends are left with a bunch of baffling questions – where’d this baby come from? Where did their friend disappear to? Why are there guys shooting at them?

The movie stays fresh as your favorite muffin as they try to recount their night, discovering new leads and clues in their pockets and along their path of drunken destruction. Plot threads and gags get introduced constantly. It’s like a dumbass investigation movie. If Old School is the stupid, frat boy version of Fight Club, Hangover is the stupid, drunk version of Memento.

Of course no one would care about the clever plot if there wasn’t a fantastic cast to tie it all together. Zach Galifianakis, who I fell in man-love with since noticing him on Tim and Eric, is the star of the show. The weirdo outcast of the group, he bares his ass, says outrageous things and slices his palm open for blood pacts. Nearly every word out of his bearded maw gets a laugh (“Pants at a time like this?!”), if there’s one reason to see the movie, it’s for this guy.

Ed Helms plays a convincing wussy beta male who lets his bitchy girlfriend push him around. He’s sort of the straight man of the group, but he gets more and more desperate as things escalate. Anyone who’s seen him on The Daily Show knows he has what it takes to squeeze some delicious, chocolatey snickers out of you.

Bradley Cooper, who I may have caught once in an episode of Nip/Tuck, is the fun-loving risk taker of the group. And he’s good! The three of them have some of the best chemistry I’ve seen in a comedy, or any movie, in a while. They’re a ton of fun to watch and root for.

And that annoying guy from National Treasure does a decent job as the guy who disappears for the whole movie.

The rest of the cast doesn’t really amount to anything more than cameo roles, but hey, it’s always fun to see Jeffrey Tambor, Rob Riggle, and a bunch of other familiar faces you’d never expect like Heather Graham and Mike Tyson.

The Hangover ranks up there as one of this summer’s best. It’s definitely the year’s best comedy. After two mall cop movies and a rom-com without the com, it’s kind of a shoe-in. Shoot, it’s almost a reason to celebrate. Just keep track of your drink, okay?