A genuinely funny movie

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2009)

"The Hangover" is boorish. Vulgar. Brash. Crude. Offensive. Twisted. Politically incorrect. And it is unexpectedly and, often, side-splittingly funny, and one of the best comedies to come out of Hollywood in a long time.
Here's the thing about Todd Phillips' movie: It has no pretensions about what it is. Phillips' directorial credits include "Road Trip" (2000), "Old School" (2003), "Starsky & Hutch" (2004) and "School For Scoundrels" (2006). But this is clearly his best and most consistently funny movie.
Who gets the credit for this film working? Phillips or screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who, let's face it, didn't exactly hit home runs with "Four Christmases" (2008) or "Ghost of Girlfriends Past" (2009)? What are the chances they happened to strike gold with this one? And much has been written about how Phillips rewrote the script for "The Hangover." How much of that is apocryphal is unknown.
What makes "The Hangover" work - other than a welcome change of not seeing Will Ferrell - is the cast of "relative unknowns." We've seen them in movies before, but they tend to fall more into the category of "that guy" than anything else. It's unlikely they remain unknown, given how hugely successful this film is.
But no one in this cast - at least among the main leads - is hamming for the camera or acting as if they know what they are doing is funny. The trick here is that Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis play much of it dead pan, taking the situation they find themselves in very seriously. There is a reason why we find Frank Drebin of "The Naked Gun" films so funny: Because Leslie Nielsen plays all his lines straight.
That's exactly what Cooper, Helms and Galiafianakis do. (Compare what they do to what Ferrell did in, say, "Old School," and you'll see what I mean.) Just watch how Galifianakis treats a line about the Holocaust or what condiments Tigers like. They are both good lines, but what makes them very funny is that he says them so matter-of-factly.
I have been a fan of Galifianakis for years. His stand-up routines are awfully funny and, most recently, I have discovered his "Between Two Ferns" online talk show that is funnier in two minutes than most 30-minute TV sitcoms. (If you haven't seen "Between Two Ferns," do yourself a favor and seek it out online.) In fact, that show is a fine example of how to do comedy well. Talk about playing it straight!
"The Hangover" should rightfully make Galifianakis a sought-out figure, as popular as Seth Rogen, except he's a better actor and more tolerable than Rogen. Galifianakis deserves all the success this film should bring him. He brings a certain naiveté to his role of Alan Garner, the bride's brother. He isn't shy, but there's a sweet charm to him that makes him awfully endearing.
When "The Hangover" stumbles, it is because supporting actors Ken Jeong and Rob Riggle play their roles for laughs, over-acting and trying too hard to sell their jokes. The story bogs down when it gets too wrapped up in exposition: A needless sequence involving Jeong's Mr. Chow. Too bad, because his introduction is absolutely hysterical and the writer(s) could have included the expositionary stuff right there when we first meet Mr. Chow. The bit with Riggle seems unnecessary and too forced. His shtick works in sketches on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," but, here, it falls flat.
Frankly, I was (pleasantly) surprised that I so enjoyed "The Hangover." The concept of bachelors heading off to Vegas for a bachelor party replete with strippers is so tired that I thoroughly expected another routine boys-will-be-boys movie. But Phillips wisely never shows us the revelry the boys got into. Instead, what we see is the aftermath as the guys try to reconstruct the previous night's events.
Much is left to our imagination as the guys try to solve a mystery. They find clues, some more enticing than the other, some more revelatory than the others. Along the way, they meet a physician, Mike Tyson and a hooker (Heather Graham), who is more than a mere hooker with a good heart - she wants to meet Mr. Right. It's lovely to see Graham in a movie like this, though she isn't given much to do. She deserves to be in a hit film, considering some of the junk she has done for the past few years. Truly, clunkers, such as "Cake" (2005), "Gray Matters" (2006) and "Miss Conception" (2008), do not do this woman justice. Give her good material and she shines. Her too-brief appearance on the TV show, "Scrubs," proves that. I hope she shows up more in "The Hangover 2."
The humor is often rude, coarse and can be offensive. But the thing about Phillips' movie is the humor - visual and verbal - is grounded in character. We care about Alan, Stu and Phil and what happens to them as they try to find their buddy, Doug. We root for them, because, despite their boorishness, their characters have heart.
"The Hangover" is funny from the very beginning. It stumbles occasionally, especially in the third act, when some of the lesser characters try too hard. But those are forgivable sins, considering how hilarious the rest of the movie is.
However, if you are one of those people who frowns at low-brow humor - and some of "The Hangover" stoops low - or is easily offended by myriad foul jokes, then might I suggest you skip this film and go see, say, "My Life in Ruins," a wholly insipid movie brimming with thoroughly inoffensive milquetoast characters?
But if you enjoy genuinely funny movies that earn their R rating because they go for broke with their jokes, then I heartily recommend "The Hangover." I might be hard-pressed to see a funnier film this year.