SMSM ’09 No. 8: The Hangover

I loved The Hangover. With reservations.

Todd Phillips’s (Old School, Starsky and Hutch) latest film came out of nowhere to be one of the most anticipated comedies of the year, and it’s not terribly hard to see why. While the concept of a wild bachelor party night in Las Vegas seems a little Very Bad Things-y (ok, so it’s exactly the same concept as Very Bad Things, or the perpetual late night HBO Kal Penn flick Bachelor Party Vegas, for that matter), The Hangover makes up for it with an endless barrage of hilarious set pieces, and very little in the way of an actual plot.

You may read that as something less than a high compliment, but let me go on record as saying that, in many cases, plot is the enemy of comedy. I call this the “second half of Stripes paradox.” The first 45 minutes of Stripes is all brilliant setup, creating the kinds of down and out characters who would join the military late in life just to get a leg up; in the final 45, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis go on a mission, and I reach for the remote. This syndrome has befallen many of my lifetimes’s near-great comedies, from Caddyshack to Super Troopers to Phillips’s own Old School.

The Hangover is aided by its conceit that its three principal characters (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis, whose mentally unhinged drug addict and possible pederast is the film’s breakout character) can’t remember anything that happened the drunken (and, as it turns out, roofied), evening prior. When the main characters can’t remember what happened, it’s an easy way of acknowledging that nothing that happened really mattered. We can now breeze along for an agenda-free 95 minutes.

Of course, a loosely interconnected chain of ridiculous events, however cleverly arranged, still wouldn’t work without a great cast to sell it. Cooper plays a feature-length version of his dickhead Wedding Crashers character, which suits him fine as the ringleader of this operation. Galifianakis is brilliant, and a third lead role in the number one movie in America should rightfully raise his profile. And Helms’ character is the heart and soul of the film, the only character with a narrative arc (as much as one can exist under these confines), and he handles it with aplomb.

I hate to find fault with a movie that had me consistently laughing for the better part of an afternoon, but a few things do trouble me about it. The first is Ken Jeong, a member of Judd Apatow’s troupe, who plays a dismal and kind of unfunny Asian stereotype here. This is at least the second film in as many years (Pineapple Express) where Jeong has played such a role, and judging by this viral clip from the upcoming Funny People, not the last. Jeong has shined in Knocked Up and other films, and he’s better than this. While the character was likely written as a stereotype, it’s likely Jeong had a part in the character’s creation, and he should probably knock it off, or at least learn to say no. This isn’t quite Mickey Rooney territory, but it’s close.

More than that, though, I’m bothered by the way films like The Hangover deal with women. It’s not that The Hangover disparages women outright. Heather Graham’s character is perfectly fine, and Sasha Barrese’s waiting bride is almost inconsequential. But Rachael Harris (as Helms’s domineering girlfriend), is drawn as the kind of monstrous bitch that justifies a man stepping away for some bro-ing down (isn’t that what dudes call it now?). We’re supposed to hate Harris, and want Helms to ditch her (which he eventually does), but it’s disconcerting that the strongest female in the film is also its most wretched character. For The Hangover and many other recent comedies, women are set up as enemies of fun. It’s a pretty disturbing trend that gets under your skin the more you see it. And yet I keep overlooking it.

Funny excuses a lot.

Film: The Hangover
Director: Todd Phillips
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Mike Epps, Jeffrey Tambor, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Rachael Harris, Sasha Barrese

Viewing situation: Weekday afternoon, packed house of stoner college students; digital projection
My grade (out of 10): 8
Rotten Tomatoes average: 78%

Next up: Drag Me to Hell

>>> Funny People Clip: Sayonara Davey [YouTube]

Summer Movie Suicide Mission ’09: Seeing them all, all summer long. Follow Summer Movie Suicide Mission on Twitter: @SMSM09.