Movie Review : The Hangover

Ok! How about a quick quiz before we go into this? What do you get when u pack off 4 guys to Vegas for a bachelor's party? The answer is pretty obvious rite?? Lots of booze, money all around, beautiful women, the night of a lifetime, rite?? Wrong!!! U get " THE HANGOVER "!!!!

Turning every known cliche in the book on its head, director Todd Phillips brings us The Hangover, a funny yet intelligent ( now that's a stupid term to use for a movie about 4 guys packed off to Vegas and a movie that reads Hangover, but I'll get to it later ) movie with 3 of probably the funniest actors of this generation - Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis. The Hangover has it's roots in a spec script written originally by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. The initial treatment dealt with a Vegas bachelor party gone wrong, but was substantially re-written by Jeremy Garelick and director Todd Phillips. The plot is reportedly inspired by a real-life event that happened to a friend of a producer of the movie when he went missing at his own bachelor party and blacked out only to subsequently wake up to see that he had run a huge bill at a strip club!

As far as the plot goes, it is fairly generic and as already mentioned above, it is about 4 guys going to Vegas for a bachelor's party. Doug (Justin Bartha) is about to be married, so his friends — Phil (Bradley Cooper), a schoolteacher bored of the married life, Stu (Ed Helms), a dentist with a strict and controlling girlfriend, and Doug's socially-inept soon to be brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis) — take him to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Stu's girlfriend (Rachael Harris) constantly calls him, forcing him to lie to her about their location. Things go wrong as soon as they arrive in Vegas. While they check into Caesar's Palace and settle in for a long night of fun things spiral out of hand and the protagonists wake up next morning with no memory of what happened about the night before. From the outset itself it is clear that something is very wrong. From there on it plays on a fairly generic route of retracing the previous night's events to fully explain how everyone got where they were. To give away what happens next will rob the viewer of the pleasure of watching this delightful comedy! It suffices to say that director Todd Phillips keeps the viewer thoroughly engaged through tight storytelling and crisp editing!! It helps to have a good screenplay and The Hangover proves that beautifully. Visually the movie looks fresh. And that is in part due to the spanning cinematography. The night shots of Vegas are incredible and even the long shots look very clear and helps to set up the scenes beautifully.

So much for tech specs! The real stars of this movie however are the actors. Bradley Cooper symbolizes the everyday joe who just wants to get away from it as far as possible and unwind. He plays his role beautifully! You actually believe that a guy could really end up like this. And that's one of the major reason why the movie works so well. Ed Helms plays his role of Stu to perfection as the bumbling and his comic timing is just spot on! But the real star of the movie is none other than Zach Galfianakis. The guy is practically a superstar! He single handedly carries the story with his character and makes you laugh at even the weirdest of moments! He also probably has the most embarrassing moment in the entire movie! Yet he plays the role so beautifully that in the end you just can't help but root for the guy! And that despite the fact that his is probably the most offensively dim-witted character in movie history! Although crucial to the story, Justin Bartha doesn't really get a fair amount of screen timing but he does make an impact with what he is given! And Heather Graham charms in her guest appearance! The other big guest appearance - ??? Naah, I won't spoil that one! It is a surprise and hilarious as hell! Something else that the movie has up it's sleeves.

In the end the stars' brilliant acting and the excellent direction elevates the movie a few notches higher! It is funny that even after having some of the most offensive material ever written in a movie, this still doesn't degrade itself to crass humor or potty comedies! And that's probably one of the reasons why I called this movie intelligent! You laugh at the absurdity of the situation and the progression of the story but not at crass dialogues or crude sexual innuendos attempted at degrading women! To be fairly honest, it is surprising that while women remain at the receiving end of such generic comedies The Hangover manages to bypass that and still remain relevant in it's humor! All in all, a perfect winner to bring the fun back to the movie watching experience!