Warner Bros. | 2009 | 108 mins. | Unrated
While I’ve always felt director/producer and screenwriter Todd Phillips was a talented guy—his documentaries Frat House and Bittersweet Motel are both high quality stuff—I never completely warmed to the fraternity style comedy that made up his two feature films, Road Trip and Old School. While both films provide a few laughs, it was in a seriously low-brow, brute force kind of way. While 2009’s The Hangover offers a few more laughs, I’m still not overly impressed. Granted, I understand I’m probably not the target audience for a film about four guys who go to Vegas for a bachelor party, get wasted, and wake up in the middle in the desert with no recollection of how they got there or what they did the night before.
Doug Billings (Justin Bartha) is getting married in two days, and his best friends Phil Wenneck (Bradley Cooper) and dentist Dr. Stu Price (Ed Helms) are taking him to Vegas for his bachelor party. Much to their dismay, the groom’s future brother-in law Alan (Zach Galifianakis), is coming along as well. Doug is a fairly clean cut guy who doesn’t particularly want a bachelor party. Phil is a good looking, cool dude, a school teacher who uses his student’s field trip money to gamble. Phil is an ultraconservative, and involved with a woman who rarely lets him out of her site. In order to go to the bachelor party, he had to come up with an elaborate lie regarding his whereabouts. Alan is a truly scary guy; a pervert who has been court ordered to stay away from children. Stupidly, the bride’s father, Sid (Jeffrey Tambor), loans these guys his prized, vintage Mercedes convertible to drive to Vegas. It should be obvious to anyone that this isn’t going to be a quiet trip for dinner and a show.
With their palatial lodgings at Caesar’s Palace secured, the guys head to the roof for a round of shots before checking out the strip. The next morning, Doug is gone and the rest of the partiers awaken to what looks like the remnants of a tornado. Stu has lost a tooth. There’s a newborn baby in the closet. And there’s a real man-eating tiger in the bathroom. With no memory of what happened the night before, Phil, Stu, and Alan begin searching for the groom-to-be. Along the way, they run into an Asian gangster (Ken Jeong), Mike Tyson, a drug dealer (Mike Epps), are forced to explain a stolen police car, and Stu’s quickie stripper bride Jade (Heather Graham)—but still no Doug.
If you enjoy humor derived from men deliberately choosing to do dumb things, the comedy found in The Hangover is for you. To give you a more concrete example: Alan the child molester takes charge of the baby and forces it to make obscene gestures. For me, that was disturbing. Having said that, there’s no doubt that Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis all have some real comic talent, so hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot more of them in them in the future. The problem here is that the script written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, spends too much time pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Warner Brothers has provided The Hangover with a fairly solid 1080p/VC-1 transfer. Lawrence Sher’s sun-splashed Nevada palette is bolstered by subtle primaries and inky blacks, fleshtones are lifelike and nicely saturated, and shadows are absorbing, all of which lend the image welcome depth and dimensionality. Detail is slightly less impreessive, but still stands out. Close-ups of Galifianakis show every cavernous nook and jutting shard of his grizzled beard. Soft shots are all-too-common sight, and nighttime sequences aren’t as sharp or refined as their daytime counterparts, but such negligible eyesores should be attributed to Phillips and Sher, not the disc’s encoders. Edge enhancement has been applied, minor artifacting and noise creeps into the picture in a handful of scenes, and banding graces some of the more glaring lights on the Vegas Strip. Each issue is kept to a minimum, but does undermines the integrity of the presentation.
Warner’s Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track is a front-heavy mix that fails to distinguish itself. Dialogue remains clear, intelligible, and well-prioritized, commandeering the center channel just as it should, but directional effects are often overtly restrained and subdued. The rear speakers not only disappoint on far too many occasions, they struggle to create an immersive soundfield. Hearty LFE output packs some much-needed sonic punch into the mix, dynamics are reasonably strong, pans are smooth, and the film’s soundtrack flexes enough muscle to leave a lasting mark.
The disc includes English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese spoken languages; French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.
The Hangover doesn’t offer much of note in the way of special features:
• Picture-in-Picture Commentary: Director Todd Phillips hosts a PiP video commentary with Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis. Phillips often overshadows his actors’ jokes and anecdotes with dry, monotoned production details. Uncomfortable pauses and stretches of silence spoil the experience further.
• Map of Destruction: Next up is a surprisingly simplistic interactive map that allows users to retrace each step of the boys’ Vegas misadventures.
• The Madness of Ken Jeong (HD, 8 minutes): Be sure to watch this series of hilarious alternate takes and deleted scenes featuring Community’s Ken Jeong.
• Action Mash-Up (HD, 1 minute): An all-too-brief montage of the film’s action beats.
• Three Best Friends Song (HD, 1 minute): The full version of Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, and Bradley Cooper’s awkward “Best Friends” song.
• The Dan Band! (HD, 1 minute): The Dan Band delivers a spirited rendition of “Fame.”
• Gag Reel (HD, 8 minutes): Typical gag reel.
• More Pictures from the Missing Camera (HD): A gallery of amusing photographs from the boy’s lost camera.
• BD-Live Functionality
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