The Hangover

Filmmaker Todd Phillips’ impressive run of mediocre yet watchable comedies (ie 2003’s Old School, 2006’s School for Scoundrels, etc) comes to a decisive halt with The Hangover, as the movie suffers from a variety of problems that are ultimately exacerbated by Phillips’ progressively desperate efforts at wringing laughs out of material that could hardly be more tedious. The film – which follows a trio of friends (Bradley Cooper’s Phil, Ed Helms’ Stu, and Zach Galifianakis’ Alan) as they attempt to piece together just what transpired during a pal’s drunken bachelor party (where it inevitably becomes clear that said pal has mysteriously vanished) – strikes all of the wrong notes virtually from the get-go, as screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore offer up a series of broadly-portrayed caricatures that could only exist within just such a low-rent comedy (with Galifianakis’ aggressively off-the-wall turn as Alan undoubtedly the most apt example of this). It subsequently becomes increasingly difficult to work up any enthusiasm for the protagonists’ ongoing quest at locating their missing buddy (Justin Bartha’s Doug), and there’s little doubt that the relentlessly episodic sensibilities of the movie’s midsection – in which the three friends tediously track down and investigate a myriad of clues relating to their hazy evening – results in an absence of momentum that persists for the remainder of the proceedings. One’s efforts at overlooking the film’s deficiencies are consistently confounded by the almost total lack of interludes and encounters that are actually funny, with the inclusion of a couple of chuckle-worthy moments within The Hangover‘s final 10 minutes (ie a hilariously inappropriate wedding singer) coming much too late to make any kind of positive impact.

** out of ****