Movie Review: The Hangover (2009)

Sometimes, a movie comes along that no one is expecting to be any good, and ends up taking the public by storm. Juno and Superbad did this two years ago. Back in 2005, The 40-Year-Old Virgin. This year, The Hangover is that movie, and it just might be the best of the bunch.

When I first saw the trailer for The Hangover, my first thoughts were, "Great, another Vegas movie." My second thought was, "Man, has Zach Galifianakis fallen so far that all he stars in are Vegas movies?" (I refused to see What Happens in Vegas, by the way. Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz are not exactly on the top of my "must see" list). A week before it's release, however, it started getting some buzz. For a movie with such a cliche premise, the critics were actually liking it. So, when a couple of my friends wanted to go to the midnight showing, I gave in and went with them.

The only word needed to describe this film is hilarious. Not all the way through, but in enough spots for the lasting impression of the movie to be, "Damn, that was hilarious!" Like most modern comedies, it starts to flounder towards the end, but for the first seventy or eighty minutes, The Hangover is a riotous film, and one that reinvents what can be done with a cliche premise.

Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms do serviceable in their roles as buddies to groom-to-be Justin Bartha, but the real star of the show here is Zach Galifianakis, the soon-to-be-brother-in-law with a couple of screws loose. Galifianakis plays his character with such naive conviction that almost everything he says is funny. Even ordinary comments are transformed by his delivery and turned from dialogue filler into comedic gold.

Some credit must also be given to director Todd Phillips and screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore for letting the comedy flow through the characters and to make the decision that the bachelor party itself need not be shown for the movie to be funny. That's not to say the movie is without flaws. Some of the supporting performances are stale/predictable (I'm looking at you, Heather Graham), and the credits slideshow is not probably as funny as it was intended to be and doesn't help overcome the fact that the movie runs out of steam before it finishes. However, compared to past works Old School (Phillips) and Four Christmases (Lucas & Moore), The Hangover is a humongous triumph, and a movie that will surely stick around as a comedy classic for years to come.

Rating: 8/10