Dec 28, 2009

REVIEW: The Hangover

We finally caught up with The Hangover on pay-per-view last night. It's one of those movies that somehow managed to slip through the cracks due to a profoundly offputting trailer: a whole bunch of unfamiliar fratboys getting into japes in Vegas with hookers and tigers and something to do with a missing tooth. It looked like the guy who loses the tooth loses it early in the movie, too, so you have to stare at the gap for the whole movie. Ever since Jeff Goldblum lost his hand in the The Fly, I've had a thing about heroes suffering irreversible physical impairments in the course of a film. It doesn't sit well with me. As it turns out, Ed Helms is the best thing in the movie. I still found it a little absent the charms of the fairer sex, although Heather Graham pops up, delightfully, with those Disneyish eyes of hers; some of the gags had a Three-Stooges heartlessness to them; and the lead hunk preens in a way that only compounds the mortal sin of making Sandra Bullock chase after him in All About Steve earlier in the year — who is this sun-kissed doofus, anyway? Preen away, hot stuff, it won't last long. But I was buoyed along by the plot, weirdly, and the conceit was ingenious, as our errant bachelors reconstruct one drunken night in the cold light of day. Its a reaction shot contest, basically, and Helms wins hands down, with his stricken elongated features, the most stricken and elongated since Hugh Laurie quit comedy, and made for confronting chickens.

1 comment:

  1. Amazing review as the movie was. Its a non stop comedy and you won't be able to stick to your chair all the time. Its an absolute fun watching this movie.

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