Culture Blues

Film: The Hangover

With The Hangover, director Todd Phillips returns to an unfamiliar R-rated comedy scene. In 2003, before Judd Apatow’s shadow had been cast over all of Hollywood, Phillips helmed Old School, a movie that actually helped to usher in the “men trying to be boys” motif that Apatow would later perfect, but neglected the maturation that Apatow’s characters experience through the course of their movies. With his latest effort, Phillips fiercely pushes back against the age of accountability.

The Hangover has more in common with Phillips’ feature debut Road Trip than it does Old School. In fact, it is essentially Road Trip with adults, if I even dare to call them that. Everyone in the movie, from the protagonists, to the state troopers, to the strippers, drug dealers, pseudo gangsters, wedding chapel owners and doctors are all willfully and blissfully irresponsible, rendering the whole film a ridiculous cartoon loaded with (male) nudity. At least it’s a reliably funny cartoon.

With early shots of Vegas as it’s rarely seen on film, illuminated by the harsh sunlight of the desert, set to Danzig’s foreboding “Thirteen,” The Hangover seemed primed to strip away Vegas’ glossy veneer and expose some of the seediness that we all know is there. To see what happens when revelers escaping the drudgery of their real lives take tourism slogans too seriously. Unfortunately, it does none of that. The idea that Vegas residents both rely on and have their lives turned upside down by the presence of tourists is touched on ever so briefly, hinting at something interesting before being chased away by increasingly implausible situations. Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms are all funny and make the male bonding under duress believable without ever doing something as uncool as talking about it.

The Hangover is a funny and entertaining comedy, and absolutely nothing more than that.