"The Hangover

"The Hangover" is the comedy of the year. I had the opportunity of watching the film at my school, the University of Alabama, provided by the fine people at University Programs. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it until the very ending, and it provided laugh after laugh. The genius of the humor was in the dialogue more so than slap stick, though there was more than enough laughs for people falling here and there. Particularly Alan.



The plot of the movie is fairly basic. Let me set it up for you.

Meet our main man, Doug Billings played by Justin Bartha, on the eve of getting married to fiancee,Tracy Garner played by Sasha Barrese,goes to Vegas for bachelor party. Doug Billings brings along a few friends, Phil Wenneck, played by Bradley Cooper, who is a school teacher disenchanted with his life and looking to get away, Stu Price, played by Ed Helms a comedian you may remember from "Half Baked" and portrayed as a spineless dentist, and Alan Garner played by Zach Galifianakis, a rising comedian that serves as an oddball for the entire film.

The film moves relatively fast getting into the plot almost immediately at the opening of the film. It runs roughly an hour and a half. The quadrant of characters in this story set out on a night in Vegas and wake not remembering anything that happened the night before. The villa they rented at Caesar's Palace is nearly dismantled, girls leave, a tiger has made its new home in the bathroom and a chicken squawking around amongst other things. Oh yea, and there's an estranged baby also lying in a cupboard.

Upon noticing that Doug is missing the remaining three characters go on a treasure hunt around Vegas looking for Doug that takes them on the ride of their lives. There old school collectible vehicle has been replaced with a police squad car that they don't recall how they got. They end up somehow getting this police squad car, and rather than doing time in jail, a concoction of pleas to the police and lies to Tracy lead to more time, and kids being able to use the triad of characters for practice dummies for a stun gun. A dramatic rivalry occurs between Alan and one kid that leads to a hilarious showdown.

After a previous encounter with his cronies, the three characters end up running into Mr Chow,played by Ken Jeong. Mr Chow is trapped in the trunk of the car after getting Doug's car from the impound. Mr Chow hops out of the trunk naked and begins to pound Stu, Alan and Phil with a crow bar. Alan tries to plea with him to no avail.It is later discovered that Phil kidnapped Mr Chow to be his lucky charm.

The three amigos continue on in their pursuit of finding their missing comrade connecting clue after clue and using their contacts to get the information they need. They realize that Phil is wearing a medical bracelet and get some clues from a doctor. The doctor mentions that they came from the Big Little Wedding Chapel before and once visiting the chapel they realize that Stu got married the night before to a woman named Jade. Once given this information, Stu looks for his new wife, finds her and returns her missing baby. Jade, played by Heather Graham, is the wife/ escort/ stripper that Stu ended up marrying. He notices that he gives his Holocaust ring to Jade that he planned to give to his prospective wife, Melissa, played by Rachel Harris and begins to panic wondering how he will get it back. Even still the film moves forward with Stu in angst.

The three have an encounter with Mike Tyson that explains the tiger resting in the villa bathroom, which leads to a funnier scene of Stu getting knocked out cold by Tyson to the tunes of Phil Collins, and the trio drugging the tiger with roofies and trying to transport it back to Mike Tyson's lair. As you may have guessed the tiger awakes on the trip to Tyson's mansion and the crew is forced to abandon driving the car and push it.

Mike Tyson has footage of what transpired on that night before via his security cameras. The footage shows how they stole the tiger which helps them get a better time frame as to when Doug went missing. The three then have another encounter with Mr Chow and his henchmen, who seem to find Alan falling all over the place funny merely because he is fat, and claim that they have Doug for ransom for the 80k they won the night before at the casino. The trio are given until the next day to come up with 80k. It turns out that Alan is a guru at counting cards and wins the ransom money. They take it to the desert to do the deal and once they give the money to Mr Chow in exchange for Doug they realize that they made the transfer for the wrong Doug. The Doug they get is a drug dealer played by Mike Epps. At their wits end, the trio are fresh out of ideas. Phil begins to make the call to Tracy to tell her the truth about what happened to her husband in Vegas, when it hits Stu like an epiphany.

The trio end up finding Doug in the most generic of places after putting clues together that they failed to acknowledge at the very outset. The find Doug exhausted, dehydrated and very tan and even in this state almost kills Phil because of him nearly missing his wedding. The four hop in the car and head back to their destination, get tuxedos from a moving van provided by Alan, and make it in time for the wedding. In the end, they become true friends, find a camera with pictures on it that detail their experience that they lost in memory, but vow to erase the pictures after looking at them only once. And to boot, Stu establishes a true connection with Jade, even though she soon realizes it was a mistake and returns his ring. Stu proceeds to break off the abusive relationship with Melissa at the reception and all ends well for our cast of characters after a trial of adversity.

The film is funny and leaves you feeling hope for any bad situation and a sense of perseverance. You become optimistic that even with the worst of situations if you keep working for a solution and go through a little pain and suffering you will undoubtedly come out victorious.