The Kidd Vs. The Hangover

The Kidd Vs. The Hangover

Close your eyes and imagine the most unreasonable bachelor party you can. No type of debauchery is too crazy and no desire you’d like to happen is too kinky, too sick, or too depraved. Think about the most ridiculous, most unbelievable event you could put together in order to celebrate one of your friend’s last nights as an unmarried man. You’ve got a picture of how it all turns out…? Because whatever you came up with is lame and amateur when compared to the experience of “The Hangover.” Oh really…? You think you’ve got some wild time planned…? Does it involve breaking into Mike Tyson’s house, so you can take a leak in his pool and steal his tiger? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

“The Hangover” tells the story of four guys who head to Vegas in order to send one of them off into marriage with one helluva bachelor party. The only problem is that three of them wake up the next morning not remembering anything from the night before, and their fourth, the groom-to-be, is missing. As a result, they have to attempt to retrace their steps in order to figure out just what the fuck happened and to find their lost friend in time to get him back for the wedding. Proof that doing shots of jager can only lead to things ending badly.

There’s a chicken walking around the hotel suite. There’s a tiger in the bathroom.  One of your crew is missing a tooth. You find a crying baby in the closet. The brand-new Mercedes you drove to Vegas has now been replaced at the valet by a stolen cop car. Another of your friends was in the hospital last night. Someone married a stripper/escort, and so on and so forth. “The Hangover” takes you on a wild ride with Phil, Stu, Alan, and Doug as they piece together a night they would never forget, but are incapable of remembering. They say “whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” but I’m pretty sure “whatever happens” never had the events of this movie in mind. Each new reveal of the night’s events tops the one previous, as they seem to get more and more far-fetched and more and more ridiculous. If it wasn’t so funny, you’d be left sitting in awe at how these guys aren’t dead.

Bradley Cooper is the ringleader of this movie as Phil, a guy with a wife and kid who is always willing to push the limits of what he can get away with in order to express himself from the boring, mundane life he has settled into. This trip to Vegas is probably one of the only things he feels he has left to look forward to. He’s an elementary school teacher who hates other people’s children. He’s going to be losing another one of his best friends to marriage. Phil is the rebel without a cause, and here might be one of his last chances to let it all hang out as life just continues to head downhill. He’s the bad influence, the guy people want to hang out with even though they’ve been told not to, and Bradley Cooper brings that confident, slightly arrogant coolness to the character. It is no wonder he has been rumored to be up for the role of Green Lantern in bringing that superhero to the big screen as well as Faceman in the movie adaptation of “The A-Team.” He has a star quality about him when he’s on screen that you find likeable, even if it comes in such a smart-ass package. This is the cool cat with the level head who keeps everyone else from freaking out and panicking, trying to instill in them that everything is going to okay, even if he himself has no fuckin’ idea how it’s all going to turn out.

Ed Helms’ Stu is very reminiscent of Helm’s Andy in “The Office.” He’s nerdy and somewhat clueless, but he’s really the heart of the movie. He may come across as dorky, but he’s a sweetheart with good intentions. Stu is a dentist who is involved with Rachael Harris who plays his overbearing and controlling girlfriend. She cheated on him awhile back with a sailor or a waiter or a bartender on some cruise, and, since he took her back, she has taken hold of the relationship, projecting her own insecurities on Stu. He never stands up for himself, thinking it’s perfectly acceptable that his woman checks his credit card statements and makes him call to check in all the time in order to keep tabs on him. He is afraid to take chances, to not follow the rules, because that’s how he’s been conditioned to think. He shouldn’t wander outside the boundaries that have been set for him, and he doesn’t plan to, even deciding that he’s going to propose when he gets back. This trip is going to help him see life from a different perspective. It starts when he has to lie to his girlfriend about where they’re going for the bachelor party and will continue onto him missing a tooth and marrying a hooker. You feel for Stu as he subjects himself to the abuse of his girlfriend to the point that he is more concerned with her finding out about what is happening in Vegas than anything else. But he’ll learn, which makes his conclusion one of the more satisfying.

Zack Galifianakis steals the show though as Alan, the groom’s brother-in-law-to-be. Alan is the guy who’s just not right, who people will always wonder about whether or not he’s all there. He’s the guy who you shouldn’t let drink too much or gamble too much or really do much of anything too much, because it could just lead to bigger problems. He just wants everyone to have a good time, because he finally feels as if he’s a part of something, as you can tell he doesn’t have a lot of friends, probably because he’s legally not allowed to come within a certain distance of those people anymore. He has these ideas that sit right on the border between genius and lunatic, such as his plan to clean out Vegas by counting cards at the blackjack table while wondering if the actual Julius Caesar may have stayed at Caesar’s Palace. Alan is the guy that would eat a jar of mayo just for the hell of it, leaving you rolling on the floor in laughter one moment, while trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with him a second later. However, it is Galifianakis’ absurdity and randomness that bring about most of the movie’s best moments. It starts with his discovery of there being a tiger in the bathroom and carries all the way through to the credits where we get a pretty good look as to the things they all don’t remember. In addition, his turn as Rain Man is hilarious, as we watch the guy we thought was the biggest idiot of the bunch turn into the guy who just might be the smartest.

The supporting cast is great as well. Justin Bartha as Doug, the missing groom-to-be, fills his role well. You may recognize him as being Nicolas Cage’s sidekick in the “National Treasure” movies, but, while he is missing for most of the movie here, he has a great deal of importance in setting up the premise. If we don’t care what happens to Doug or whether or not his friends find him, then the movie is screwed before we even get started. He is able to convince us that he is one of the best friends these guys have ever had.

Heather Graham’s turn as Jade, the stripper/escort mom, makes you wonder just where the fuck Heather Graham has been lately. She brings her friendly warmth to the screen, as we’ve seen before in her roles in the 2nd “Austin Powers” as well as in “Boogie Nights” before Rollergirl got all strung out. She is still very sexy, but also sweet, that you can understand why Stu would marry her the first night they met, even if he was in a drunken stupor. She thinks he’s a good guy for who he is, not who she can make him be, and has the sense enough to know the reality of the entire situation. I missed you. Heather Graham. I had almost forgotten just how good you are, so thanks for the reminder.

Jeffrey Tambor, Ken Jeong, Mike Epps, and Bryan Callen all take advantage of their moments, playing them up for the laughs their scenes should deliver. But how can you not talk about “The Hangover” without mentioning Mike Tyson? I’m sure you’ve seen parts of his appearance all over the place by the time you see this movie, but there is plenty more to it than that. Granted, I would kill for a Mike Tyson album of entirely Phil Collins’ covers, and the scene is still as funny watching it for the three-thousandth time as it was the first time around. However, his scene sitting on the couch with the boys reviewing some security footage is just as great. The fact that you get to see Tyson playing Tyson is funny enough, as it certainly wouldn’t have played as well with Riddick Bowe or George Foreman. However, here you get to see some genuinely funny moments from a guy you would hardly associate with comedy.

Todd Phillips, who directed “Old School,” delivers another solid comedy that is always pushing the boundaries but never loses you, because you can genuinely believe that this group of guys could get wrapped up in this series of events. Of course that also means an appearance by The Dan Band as the wedding reception entertainment, which is sure to make you wish for the return of wedding singers and death to DJs. You would have never expected such a funny script from Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, considering their previous collaborations on “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” “Four Christmases,” and that Marin Lawrence basketball movie “Rebound.” But they hit all their moments with “The Hangover,” with highly capable actors nailing their beats for a very good time at the movies.

“The Hangover” is proof that you don’t need big stars to deliver some comedic material; you just need funny people. In the spirit of professionalism, I opted against seeing this movie drunk, as I considered getting in mindset of the movie. It’s a good thing I exercised good judgment and went in perfectly sober, or else the hilarity of “The Hangover” would have had me pissing my pants. I also wouldn’t recommend seeing the movie with a hangover of your own, because the laughs this movie generates will do nothing for that killer headache. If you want to see a movie that might just bring you tears from laughter, The Kidd recommends you plunk down some money and catch “The Hangover.” If tears from sadness are more your thing, well, there’s always “Wolverine.”

Have a pleasant immediate future.