Reviews
There’s been a lot of hype over this new film. The Hangover’s comedy quad have commonly been described as Hollywood’s newest, hottest troupe. Even though they’re not entirely new. Bradley Cooper – professional best friend (Yes Man, Alias, My Little Eye) plays Phil, a cocky schoolteacher, barely into maturity himself. Ed Helms (The Office: An American Workplace and a handful of Will Ferrell based gunk) is Stu, uptight relationship-monger secretly dying to free himself. And Zach Galifianakis, the statistical newcomer despite a role in relative hit What Happens in Vegas… already under his belt, as Alan, a child in an idiot’s clothing.
Part of the hype claims this will be the biggest comedy hit of the year… more quotable than Anchorman they say. After reading that review, I wasn’t expecting much. I hate Anchorman. I understand this one statement has probably caused half the people reading (so half a person then), to bail out now, just 140 words in, but bear with me. All Anchorman was was one big, very long, quote. All they did was make sure there was plenty opportunity for Ferrell to do his ‘improv thing’. Let him say whatever wacky stuff he wanted, then worry about the story later on.
This approach doesn’t work for films. Not if you want to make a good one. If you want to make a shit film, a shit film that will make you loads of money, give you a huge career and people will love… then it’s what you’re after. But if you want a good film, then it’s not gonna work. How happy am I, in that case, to be able to say that The Hangover doesn’t live up to the hype; not at all. It’s not in the slightest bit quotable. I saw it merely hours ago, and I can’t remember a single line from it. Why exactly this is a good thing, is coming up.
If I were to liken The Hangover to another film, the first that springs to mind is Dude Where’s My Car. The similarities are frankly uncanny. Again, this sounds like I’m complaining; I’m really not. On the face of it… Dude Where’s My Car could have almost been decent. Couple of guys get really drunk the night before, and spend the rest of the film on a mission to both work out what they did, as well as right whatever terrible wrong they don’t remember making, whilst learning a valuable lesson along the way. It’s got scope; it’s simple, solid, there’s plenty of extra room to fill it with enough jokes, and situation/observational humour.
Dude Where’s My Car of course, was stupid. The characters were stupid. They were only stupid – 2 dimensional. The story was 1 dimensional even, and by the end they’d reduced it to aliens, and toilet floor humour. Thankfully this is not another one of those. The Hangover is the film, that premise deserved. 4 friends go to Vegas on a stag-night, get drunk, really really drunk and suffer short-term memory loss (sounds like what London Me Up was invented for). The rest of the movie depicts them trying to work out what happened – mainly because in the melee of the night, they’ve lost their friend – the stag.
Hilarity inevitably ensues when the friends attempt to re-trace their steps and realise the magnitude of the shit they now find themselves in. The ludicrasity of the previous evening’s events grows and grows, yet still remains within the confines of reality. One could imagine (given enough drugs and booze), they could find themselves in a similar situation. Not likely, but possible enough to believe.
The film’s true charm is in the style of comedy. There’s nothing special in it really, in fact I believe it’s due to the uncharacteristic lack of speciality, in which it claims the charm. It’s the difference between popular comedies starring Will Ferrell, and popular comedies starring Seth Rogen. Will Ferrell uses the bizarre: A misogynistic, jazz-flute playing, alcoholic lady’s man? Where did that come from? Seems Ferrell just empties a dictionary onto his character profile, and gets on with it. Whereas Rogen’s character is just, ‘Man’. One of my film tutors once told me “never write a character who’s ‘Just a normal guy’. As no-one is just a normal guy.” This still seems as stupid to me as it did at the time. Of COURSE people are normal guys?! Statistically, MOST people are normal you dumb shit!
Anyway, if these 3 guys really are the newest comedy gang to hit Beverly Hills, I say roll on. It’d be nice to see more ‘normal guy’ comedies out there giving Ferrell a run for his huge truck-load of money. So support it… go see The Hangover, enjoy it, talk about how nice it is to see a film that’s funny without being stupid.
The Hangover - Brought to you by James Wormald -