The Hangover

If there is such thing as a 'chick-flick', then The Hangover is an archetype of the dick-flick. It's yet another treatment of boys behaving badly, as boys tend to do in any group larger than one. The more outrageous, dangerous, or patently stupid their antics, the higher they will ascend on the ladder of masculine esteem and admiration. Or so thinks Todd Philips, the director of this raunchy rendition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Bachelor Party in the style of Quentin Tarrantino. Phillips, involved in the early stages of Borat as well as producer and director of both Frat House and Old School, again makes a gallant attempt to become the Alfred Hitchcock of juvenile bathroom humor, and almost succeeds. Phil, Stu and Alan, groomsmen for Doug--about to marry Alan's sister, Tracy--take him on a boy's last night out in Vegas just two days before the wedding, planning to drive there and back to LA in Tracy's dad's vintage Mercedes. When the boys arrive at Caesar's Palace, Phil talks them into upgrading to an expensive suite, and the night begins with toasts and glad-handing up on the hotel rooftop.

The three groomsmen had a lot more fun than it appears in the poster, especially the baby, Carlos, after a primer from Al on how wank off.

It could happen to anyone, I suppose. Anyone could wake up in the morning in a throughly trashed $4,000/day room with a bad hangover and no memory of the night before. You might find a front tooth missing, a chicken in the kitchen, a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet and a groom nowhere to be found. Your mission, should you decide to take it, is to find Doug by retracing your steps the night before and get him back to LA in time to get hitched.

And so they do, but it isn't easy. To get a flavor of what goes on, they hand a parking ticket they found to the valet in front of the hotel, fearing the worst about what might have happened to Daddy's treasured Benz. The valet returns with a Las Vegas patrol car and hands them the keys. As if that wasn't bad enough, about ten minutes later they find the naked chinese gangster someone stashed in the trunk of the cruiser.

Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson appears later on... it was his tiger, and the baby belongs to the hooker (Heather Graham: she specializes in hooker) the nerdy dentist Stu married the night before, it turns out.

And so it goes, on and on.

At times it was pretty funny, hilarious indeed. But it's that edgy kind of funny where you feel bad in the pit of your stomach and the depths of your being... like after witnessing a long string of Borat rape and incest jokes.

Funny, but not really.

Rating: A Raunchy 2.5 Out of 5
Fat Laughing Golden Buddhas