The Hangover

For weeks now, commercials have been touting The Hangover as "the breakout comedy hit of the summer!" After a 40 million dollar opening weekend, it looks like that was more than promotional braggadocio. It was an easy prediction to make, though, because The Hangover meets every requirement of past "breakout comedy hits of the summer:" 1. it's about a bunch of bros getting into shenanigans, 2. it's R-rated due to pervasive cursing and the presence of at least one boob and/or wang 3. it features a left field celebrity cameo (in this case, Mike Tyson). In other words, it's perfectly catered to appeal to 18-40 year old white males, the ur-consumers. Making it even easier to tell that The Hangover was going to be a "breakout comedy hit" is that the very term "breakout comedy hit" is a misnomer. "Breakout" suggests that these movies have to struggle for recognition in a sea of similar films. The fact is, that only one or two of these movies are released in a given summer. Every other "comedy" that comes out in wide release in the summer months is either a migraine-inducing CGI-filled bit of calculated whimsy aimed at kids (Night at the Museum, Land of the Lost), a women-skewing romantic comedy (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, The Proposal) or an "urban" entertainment (anything with Tyler Perry and/or Ice Cube). Because young white males aren't considered a "niche,"movies that try to make young white males laugh are the only ones that get called "comedies" without a prefix, even though they're often just as much slaves to their demographic as any other type of comedy.

And boy-howdy is The Hangover a slave to its demographic. It's the story of three bros waking up from a Las Vegas bender with no memory of the night before trying to find their missing groom-to-be, while dealing with the consequences of their outlandish blackout behavior. Such behavior includes marrying strippers, losing teeth and stealing Mike Tyson's pet tiger. Along the way, there are a bunch of ass and penis related jokes, some exceedingly contrived tazer hijinx and other stuff too pointless and unfunny to bother recounting. The main problem with The Hangover, besides its general air of randomness and predictability (will the sedated tiger wake up in the back of the BMW during the ride to Mike Tyson's house? You bet!) is that the characters are either bland and/or indistinct, or frankly repellent. Bradley Cooper plays a guy named Phil who, in the name of accuracy, should have been named "Vince Vaughn Was Unavailable," is a douchebag, but a completely humorless one. Ed Helms is basically Cameron Fry grown up. He's got a few good comedic moments, but doesn't leave much of an impression. The biggest disappointment is Zach Galifinakis as the bride-to-be's creepy brother. He delivers the only funny dialogue uttered by any of the principle characters, but he doesn't' have a consistent voice: sometimes he seems developmentally disabled, sometimes perverted, sometimes just harmlessly weird. Like the rest of the movie, the characterization is sloppy. Director Todd Philips and company seem content to hit as many Maxim-approved comic set ups as possible, even if the haphazard style blunts the humor and makes it impossible to care what happens next, because the characters are jackasses and nothing they do is going to be funny anyway.