Wedding Bell Blues

Rating: 4/10 (21 January 2011)

The first time I saw this film, I was in a packed Norwalk theater, the woman next to me was grabbing my arm, and I nearly ripped a gut laughing so hard.
The next time I saw it, I was alone with my DVD, the woman had long ago married another guy, and geez, somehow my enthusiasm barely crept into canter mode.
So was I at fault, or was it really a "Hangover" hangover?
It's probably the fault of "Hangover" being such a party movie. If you are having a party, you are only going to enjoy the Vegas decadence, the numbskull wisecracks, the whiplash plot twists. If you are watching this from something of a socially-isolated remove, you might find it more of a laugh-begging lowest-common-denominator comedy that doesn't work hard enough to make you care.
The idea of four men celebrating a final night of bachelorhood has been done enough times already. "The Hangover" shakes things up by making the comedy a bit of a mystery at the outset. Where did the groom disappear to, and why is there a tiger in the bathroom? The groom's two best friends and prospective brother-in-law have less than 48 hours to find out.
If there was one thing I was really amused by the first time, it was Zach Galifianakis's turn as the goofy hirsute manbaby Alan Garner. "Don't let the beard fool you, he's a child," as Dr. Stu (Ed Helms) tells a would-be attacker. But the next time I saw the film, I stumbled over the previously-overlooked-fact Alan is presented as a child molester with a record.
I guess that's the film's way of being edgy, like by mentioning 9/11 and the Holocaust. Other jokes seem less winning, too, particularly a segment where the core trio is picked up by the law and another where they run into Heather Graham, who would be the worst actor in the film if not for a former heavyweight champion.
One thing that improved my enjoyment the third time around was the realization, from reading the IMDb comments, that Bradley Cooper's star character Phil is supposed to be a jerk, and not just a cool guy who wears fantastic sunglasses. He actually fits into that part quite well, without delivering an overbearing performance like Dr. Stu's fiancée, who director Todd Phillips makes sure we hate from the first minute she's on.
Good things in the film include a speech from Alan about forming a "wolfpack" and some stray surveillance footage involving a tiger. As I said, the whole opening section develops an interesting story, but the rest of the film lets this slide for cheap laughs. Alan even asks a pretty hotel clerk at Caesar's Palace if Caesar himself really lived there.
A good comedy, like any other movie, is a film for all seasons, not just when life is good and everyone is laughing. "The Hangover" feels too much like the title condition by the end.