Royal Folly
Written: Oct 07 '09 (Updated Nov 09 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Lots of crude humor in an imaginative plot.
Cons: Don't try this at home.
The Bottom Line: A bachelor party that went off the tracks, literally. Your mind on drugs and then some.
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| topreviewerman's Full Review: The Hangover |
A nervous bride (Sasha Barrese) on her wedding day, sans groom, receives a phone call from his friend Phil ominously reporting, "We [blanked] up." No explanation while we are transported 2 days earlier to see Doug (Justin Bartha) preparing for his carefree Las Vegas bachelor party with his two friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms), along with the bride's offbeat brother Alan (Zach Galifianakis) who promises to give nothing away—"I'm a steel trap." Her father wishes them well and loans them his Mercedes Benz.
Soon they're on top of the world, on the roof of Caesar's Palace, toasting each other with Jaegermeister: "May tonight be but a minor speed bump in a long and happy marriage" and "To a night the four of us will never forget."
Cut to the next morning where the minor speed bump looks more like a major train wreck, and rather than a night never to be forgotten, it's a night missing from memory. Also missing is the groom Doug. After a herculean effort to retrace their drunken steps and still no Doug, Phil must put in the phone call and face the consequences. Then comes the denouement.
As each step of the previous night gets traced, and as we eventually get to look at the pictures, it takes on a horrid logic a serious drunkard will recognize only too well. The Hangover is based on the real life exploits of Tucker Max in his book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. These can be truly classified as exploits of a kind you'd have likely forgotten for not having talked about them even if your life at one time had got so far out of line. We don't get to see the actual partying, only its aftermath of a kind that would defy the logic of a sober man, but sober they must fit the pieces together in order to locate Doug in time for his wedding. It's one long combination of suspense, laughter, and head shaking. Where you see yourself on the continuum between partying and responsibility will probably set your mood for the show, but even a serious sort of person might do well to think twice before dismissing it outright.
This is the sort of movie certain of my circle of Bible-thumpers wouldn't be caught dead at, but I'd like to take a moment to defend it to them. First of all, we see an actual Bible on the screen, if only a Gideon's in a hastily opened drawer in the hotel room during a frantic search. But it's more Bible than is seen in other movies. Secondly, we then see a prominently displayed book titled The World's Greatest Blackjack Book. This is a positive association of the Bible with great literature. The Bible is more than just a religious book; it's also great literature. At least it's a positive association. And thirdly, for any Bible thumper who wants to trash or censor this movie, we can still ask the question, are you familiar enough with this great book to recognize the three (or four) interwoven plots in "The Hangover" written about at the end of the 7th chapter of Ecclesiastes? Let me enlighten you.
Ecclesiastes was written by the great king Solomon chronicling his investigation into the world we live in including its folly. (Eccl. 7:25) "I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness." "The wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness" is exactly what the partiers discovered they did the night before. Furthermore, it was royal folly, foolishness and madness. They didn't drink just alcohol, they were having roofies, the date-rape drug—whence the loss of memory. Stu didn't demonstrate his bravado by disfiguring himself with some outrageous tattoo, oh no, but being a dentist, he pulled one of his own teeth on a dare. He didn't celebrate being away from his girl of three years by having a fling with some stripper girl named Jade (Heather Graham), nope, he married the babe in a Las Vegas chapel. And he didn't give her some cheap jewelry but his grandmother's holocaust ring. They didn't latch on to some stray cat as a good luck talisman; it was a Bengal tiger. Their home invasion was of a celebrity. When one of them got punched for their trouble, it was by Mike Tyson. They didn't just steal some car; it was a cop car they stole. Their show-and-tell demonstration at a local school looked more like torture. They didn't mistakenly appropriate the gambling money of some hapless tourist; it was from a very displeased Chinese gangster (Ken Jeong). This was not your run of the mill stupidity; this was the king of stupidity in a night on the town, worthy of King Solomon on the loose for comparison.
At the end of the movie when they discover a camera full of pictures of their fun night, they make a pact to view it but once and then delete it. That's like this one verse in the Bible. If we're reading through Ecclesiastes and get to (7:25) about Solomon's investigation of folly, we read the verse once—imagining whatever it is we're capable of—, then we get on with the book never to return to it. "The Hangover" helps with our imagination, and if the Bible-thumpers don't want to see the movie, well, who can blame them?
(Eccl. 7:26) "And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her." There is a whole subplot concerning Stu and the girl he's trapped in a relationship with. It looks like he's stuck with her but good, but when he embraces a kind of family values, suddenly other options open up.
(Eccl. 7:27-28) "Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found." The way the movie deals with this seemingly sexist theme is when Alan needs to exercise some genius in their endeavor to get Doug back, he needs to be so smart there is almost nobody to compare him to. They settle on the Rain Man or A Beautiful Mind. They didn't think of any Rain Woman or Beautiful Body. And yet they couldn't have pulled it off without Jade as their confederate and her acting ability in a ruse. While the woman didn't meet the intelligence standard of Rain Man, she wasn't a "retard" [sic] either. Personally, I think women are delightful social creatures even if they have trouble with the calculus we saw flashed on the screen.
(Eccl. 7:29) "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." People come from wholesome towns to where? some spot in the desert, Las Vegas, where all kinds of trouble has been invented for them to get into.
These are the four themes woven together in "The Hangover." But they're right there in the Bible too, if you're into that. While Ecclesiastes doesn't lend itself to sermons, movies fare better as evidenced also in Rachel Getting Married, American Beauty, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Dark Knight, Next Day Air, Body of Lies, Appaloosa, Hudsucker Proxy, and My Sister's Keeper.
The acting in "The Hangover" is basically a bunch of seasoned actors and actresses enjoying themselves with abandon. Mike Tyson, though, boxes better than he acts. At least he got his lines right which were mercifully few. Ken Jeong excelled as the peeved gangster, making a minor role stand out more than it otherwise would have. A masterful job was done by Zach Galifianakis playing the socially inept Alan, brother of the bride, who had to pull their bacon out of the fire. Socially inept is easy to play; silent mental activity more difficult. It was sort of like the shrink observing his chess playing patient in Madison Smartt Bell, Ten Indians (New York: Random House, 1996) p. 25: "Kirk always played in a bitter silence, with a grand master's air of concentration." Alan was also under close scrutiny running his scam before closed circuit TV cameras, but he gave nothing away—"I'm a steel trap"—except to the audience with the help of a special effect overlay. It's worth the movie fare just to see that sequence.
The music while not dominating the movie, added something to its integration of a lot of disjointed discoveries. We start on the eve of Doug's wedding with El Vez, It's Now or Never, go to Who Let Out the Dogs? for the bachelors' night on the town, and it's all downhill from there. I don't know if it was my imagination, but it seemed to me there were parody lyrics in at least some of the songs. I don't recall the words, "Don't be a victim" being in It's Now or Never. It certainly seemed to contribute to the mood of replaying a night in disbelief that's what really happened.
This was an altogether excellent movie. Even though it had a lot of crude humor, it can still be appreciated by someone with religious sensibilities if he knows how to take it. My recommendation is to see it for kicks.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Guy Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing
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Epinions.com ID:
topreviewerman
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Member: Earl Gosnell
Location: Eugene, OR
Reviews written: 86
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
BSEE, U. of Cincinnati. Ordained minister, United Congregation of Friends. Poet Laureate, Longfellow, Colorado.
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