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There needs to be a certain distance created between the audience and the characters so that the audience feels able to laugh at the characters’ misfortunes. Otherwise the often horrific, sometimes brutal, and constantly bizarre antics that go on in The Hangover wouldn’t be so uproarious. Fortunately, they are.
The Hangover starts some 48 hours after the ill-fated bachelor party, with the groom-to-be missing and his three groomsmen in pretty bad shape. Rewind two days and the preparations for the wedding and the trip to Vegas are underway. The glimpse we have been given of the future means that all the warnings about Vegas, and the off-the-cuff comments insisting the four friends will be fine, are laced with a sweet dramatic irony which the audience laps up.
Rather than being a mindless buddy comedy, The Hangover works more like a detective story, as the three groomsmen try to piece together what happened the night before and work out where on earth they left the groom. But that is not to say the film lacks heart, as the chemistry between the friends is heartfelt and genuine. While all three are completely different, they complement each other perfectly: Phil (Bradley Cooper) is the laid-back ladies man, who is also a married school-teacher with a child; Stu (Ed Helms) is the nerd, a successful dentist with a domineering girlfriend; and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) is the bearded-eccentric, brother of the bride who is making new friends. Among them all, it is Galifianakis who is the real revelation, as he wanders between each improbable situation, providing enlightenment through his utterly random, yet hilarious, statements.
As Helms has said, much of the comedy comes from the situations in which the characters find themselves; while they are comical characters, they are mainly passive players in a drama that just keeps getting worse, as the truth about the bachelor party gradually comes to light. Along the way they find a baby in the closet, a tiger in the bathroom, and Mike Tyson air-drumming to Phil Collins in their hotel suite.
Not to denigrate the genre in general, but unusually for a comedy the film is elegantly put together. The camera bathes us in the lights of Las Vegas and soaks up the beauty of the surrounding desert, and there is an inspired opening shot synchronising the famous Bellagio fountains to the sound of Danzig’s ‘Thirteen’. The soundtrack is also enjoyable, including a surreal musical interlude in which Stu describes their predicament in the form of a piano ditty.
No matter how many shocking turns the plot takes, the comedy comes thick and fast, and the camaraderie between the friends buoys them along as they bond through their ordeal. You’ll leave the cinema with a huge grin on your face.
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