The Hangover: Ahh, the Dangers of Alcohol

I was pretty excited to see The Hangover. I am a twenty-four year old male, who enjoys drinking and has experienced more black-outs than I’m proud of. The day after a black-out includes me sheepishly calling a friend, recounting my few memories, and subtly trying to inquire about my post-blackout actions. Then, after the initial laughter, I am forced to reconcile said actions with who I am as a person. This movie was made for guys like me.

It's not uncommon for guys to take their buddies to Vegas for a last hurrah, drink too much, and do stupid things they don’t remember…stupid, meaning, going $400 over budget or getting thrown out of a casino. What the fine gentlemen in The Hangover get into is beyond surreal. Their night begins innocently enough with three friends (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis) toasting their soon-to-be buddy Justin (Doug Billings) atop a Vegas rooftop. And then…they wake up. They can’t remember a thing, but with the room trashed, they guess they had a good time. Until they discover the groom is missing.

This begins the arduous process of piecing together the previous night which includes – but is not limited to – the following discoveries: a bed atop a Vegas hotel; a baby in their hotel room; a tiger belonging to Mike Tyson; a missing tooth; a valet ticket which gets them a police car instead of their convertible; a Chinese gangster inside said convertible. Though incredibly random, the movie is able to make it work within a logical timeline (which is the only logic necessary, given that most drunken behavior is illogical).

And yet, I left the theatre pretty under whelmed. It’s a pretty basic story, held above water by the reveals and the jokes that go along with them. I feel like most of the action in the now was not spent paving over the previous nights' events, and that we were treated to a slew of characters saying variations of, "Oh, you don't remember what happened? Oh, you were so wasted..." I didn’t love the cast, nor did I feel that they would have actually been friends (Galifianakis is a HUGE exception; everything he says is gold). And the Chinese gangster bit, though initially funny, gets tiresome.

I still liked it, in that I can remember and laugh at certain jokes and moments. But I definitely expected more. If we judge the movie from the box office, it was insanely successful. I don’t know…maybe after X years of drinking, I’m a bit desensitized to this sort of stuff?


(PS - Sit through the credits)