The Hangover

When I first heard the plot for this film, I was not to impressed. It sounded cliche: Four guys go to Vegas for a bachelor party, they get wasted on drugs and alcohol, wake up after an insane night and don't remember a thing. The only twist is that the husband-to-be is missing in the morning. The execution, on the other hand, is phenomenal.

When Phil, Stu, and Allan wake up, they find a destroyed hotel room which includes a hospital tag, a baby in the closet, and a tiger in the bathroom. But wait, there's more, turns out one of them married a stripper and lost a tooth, and they apparently stole a cop car. The trio go on a journey to find not only their friend, but also to get to the bottom of these bizarre results. Along the way, they get stunned by tazers, attacked by chinese gangsters, must cheat a casino to make $80 grand, are involved in a kidnapping of a drug dealer and even meet Mike Tyson. This is only part of the action, see the movie to learn the rest.

The entire film, I was bothered by the characters. Of the four, Phil is only one that is remotely cool or normal, he holds the idiocy together. Allan is just plain strange. Though there is some rhyme to his reason, he does not appear to have much in the way of guiding principals or steady logic (even on his level). The character that is supposed to be the "normal guy", Doug, comes of as too much of a pansy and has virtually no depth. More importantly, Doug seems like a carbon copy of a different character, Stu, just a few years earlier. Stu is also less than respectable, he remains with a cold and hating girlfriend, even though she has cheated on him. The only character that I actually liked in this film was the drug dealer that was kidnapped, also named Doug, even though he was in the film for a grand total of ten minutes.

Character flaws aside, the rest of the film was well made. The cinematography makes the viewers appreciate Vegas' aesthetic qualities, both man made and natural. Like in The Seventh Seal, a number of shots could have been excellent still photos. The plot runs smoothly, but has enough unexpected turn of events to keep the audience confused, but begging for more. The jokes range from low brow to high brow, they are often hard to foresee, and produced by quality writers. Though the soundtrack consists mostly of popular music, it is selected well and placed in the best parts for any given song. The producers of he film have already received a grant to make a sequel, and if this is the result of their work, it is the only reasonable step to take.