One of the more inspired and successful comedies of recent times

Rating: 9/10 (19 March 2010)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
There's lots of places I'd like to visit in America, with it's fifty one states and stapling as the most powerful country in the world. But Las Vegas, to be honest, has always stood out as one I could quite comfortably avoid. The emphasis to me has always seemed to be on the casinos, and I've never gambled in my life (well, I've brought the odd lottery ticket.) But of course, there's also plenty of super hotels, nightclubs, world class shows...the place would seem to have something for everyone. But, from the sweeping over shots on the opening of The Hangover, my main problem with it now is that it all looks too over whelming to me, with bursting visual stimuli coming from every pore. "Designed to inflame the senses" as Ned Flanders well described it in an episode of The Simpsons. "A place where it's against the law to be responsible" as Piers Morgan more worryingly described it in a recent newspaper article for the Mail. Aya Napa and Ibiza are wild enough for me, but if you had the time and the money, just how out of control would things be if you had your stag night in Vegas? There's people in the world that could do that, and that's the high concept idea of this film.
How wild it gets is that the groom Doug (Justin Bertha) goes missing...that's without mentioning a trashed hotel room, a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, a stolen cop car and the naked Chinese man (who turns out to be a camp Triad boss!) who jumps out the boot. Somehow smooth Phil (Bradley Cooper), charmless Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and meek Stu (Ed Helms) must make sense of it all while searching for their friend who's getting married in less than twenty four hours. It's such a simple but effective idea that probably works so well because of it's what if?...potential. Men together are laddish and egg each other on, and just how out of control could things be and just what would the consequences be? Of course a lot of the humour is facile and over the top, but it works well with the tone of the film in that's the mindset of the men involved and quite often the film is pant wettingly hilarious.
The director (who luckily has a string of well known credits behind him) has taken a cast of unknowns and produced a highly successful high concept comedy that's inspired and original and like the best of them nowadays, about as politically correct as a drunken Roy 'Chubby' Brown. As such, it's definitely one of the better comedies of recent times. ****