Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Hangover- Echo reviews it

If what happened in Vegas truly stayed there, we'd never get movies as entertaining as The Hangover.

The setup is simple: Three guys take their best bud on a crazy bachelor party trip to the city of sin to have one last hoo-rah before locking on the ole' ball and chain. A blast (apparently) was had by all as the guys get wasted beyond comprehension and wake up unable to remember anything from the past 24 hours. The vast majority of the film follows the three friends, played by Bradley Cooper (Nip/Tuck), Ed Helms (The Daily Show) and Zach Galifianakis (stand-up comedian), as they try to figure out what happened the night before in order to find the missing groom-to-be.

When you wake up to a tiger in the bathroom, a missing tooth, a live chicken strutting around the motel room and a veritable tower of beer cans stacked to the roof, clearly there's a lot to figure out. Thankfully, while a missing automobile serves as a key plot point, nobody ever asks "Dude, where's my car."

Given the premise, I honestly wasn't expecting much from this one. The three stars are mostly new at this sort of thing and the concept has been done a few dozen times. It was a wonderful surprise, then, that I was laughing through the entire film.

Cooper is charming, vulgar and well-cast as the kind of guy who gets his friends to leap before they look despite the likely unfortunate consequences. Helms is hilarious and reminiscent of Steve Carell in all his awkward and repressed glory and Galifinakis is a visual and comedic delight. While I'm sure writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore penned quite a bit of the film's best gags, Mr. G's delivery felt more ad libbed and, thus, had a huge payoff. It's hard not to grin just looking at the guy.

What could have been the expected frattish bullcrap crammed into the majority of these types of films (there's some of that, sure), is instead a great addition to buddy films and comedies in general.

If you're in need of a buttload of laughs, you have no reason to miss out on this one.

5 comments:

Dusty, Kimmy, Niran & Calvin said...

You, Jeff, Dusty and Niran should recreate that shot!

peskypepper said...

oh my god yes!!!!

-Ryan Winslett said...

Does anyone have access to one of those baby carriers? Otherwise, we've gotta cut some leg holes in a backpack. Either way, I'm all for it.

Jeff Jeffikinakis said...

I'll start growing my beard out.
Also, would Ryan be Bradley Cooper or Ed Helms?
Does Dusty have a preference?

Dusty, Kimmy, Niran & Calvin said...

Jeff, I think Jess and I have figured that out, I'll let you talk to her. I don't know who is who, but Ryan is the background.

Ryan, we have a baby carrier. We'll get Niran readjusted to it. And Hopefully he fits into one of his old caps.

I was thinking if we can't find an actual location we could recreate it in Ryan's hallway using paper/fabric and other items and add some extra lighting to finish it off.

Dusty and I were just talking about this earlier today, because if we can pull it off it will be fantastic!