Movie of the Week: The Hangover

   

 

    Movie of the Week (8/4/13-8/10/13): I'm beginning to make a habit of this late thing, but I was in Gatlinburg this weekend, so I think that is a good excuse for being late this time. With summer slowly coming to a close and school beginning to start back up, I thought a movie about a party gone wrong would be a good fit. Although I don't believe most people will stop partying for those reasons and I hope your party doesn't turn out like it does in this film. Four friends go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and are slipped drugs, then one thing leads to another and they lose the groom, the next morning three of them wake up and must retrace their steps to find out where he is in The Hangover. 
    What is good about this film is that it is very original when it comes to the writing from screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Throughout the film the three main characters are faced with many serious, but very funny challenges that will make you laugh for a while after the movie is over with. They have to face things like a stripper who married one of the guys without him knowing it, an unknown baby, a couple funny police officers, a powerful, yet small, man named Mr. Chow, a tiger, and Mike Tyson himself. All of these encounters are well written and original, which is why they turn out to be extremely funny, along with a great cast that couldn't have been better.
    The cast is extremely good in this film with Bradley Cooper as Phil, Ed Helms as Stu, Justin Bartha as Doug, Zach Galifianakis as Alan, Heather Graham as Jade, Ken Jeong as Mr. Chow, and Mike Tyson as Mike Tyson. When you put this funny cast into one movie you know it's going to be hilarious. This movie was also the coming out party for Zach Galifianakis, who is very funny, and has done other roles since then and looks to be very promising. Everybody else is superb in their roles as they embraced them, especially Bradley Cooper, who will win an Oscar one day, and Ed Helms who give us the best performances in the movie.
    With the film being set in Las Vegas it of course looks great and it has great cinematography, but that is not why we watch comedies, but of course that is still important. When it comes to comedies we mainly look at the originality of the film, like I have already mentioned, which is powered by the writing. But, we also look closely at the direction, editing, and score because all three of these are very important for comedies, although they are also important for other films too obviously, but comedies are different, they are hard to make. The director, Todd Phillips, does a great job at directing the cast to give us hilarious performances and making each scene serious and funny at the same time. The scene where Stu sings "The Tiger Song" is probably one of the funniest in the movie. The director is also helped with the editing and score, both of which are very good and help bring humor and tension in each scene.
    This film is the first of a trilogy, the last part of which was released early this summer, and they started it off with a bang. I haven't met very many people who did not like this movie. What makes this movie a good comedy is that it is not a stupid comedy, like most people think comedies should be, no it is funny situations happening in a serious setting. That is what makes this movie a great original comedy, I know I keep saying that but it is true and why it is so good. It fits in the ranks of comedies form directors such as Mel Brooks and David Zucker, his earlier films that is. It is hard to make comedies these days and Todd Phillips proved everybody wrong when this film came out, it is one of the best, if not the best, comedies in the last five of ten years.                                           3.5/4 Stars