CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 6/05/09

The Morning Laughter

By david michael wharton

The Hangover

Jon Lucas & Scott Moore

A debauched Vegas bachelor party goes horribly wrong when Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) awake the next morning with an unidentified baby in the closet, a tiger in the bathroom, and no memory of the night's events. Worse, they've misplaced one very important thing: Doug, the groom (Justin Bartha). From that basic premise, The Hangover unfolds more or less as you'd expect, an odyssey by way of Memento as the guys try to piece together the previous night's apocalyptic events and figure out where the hell they left Doug. Each of the three leads start out as a broad stereotype—the asshole, the uptight guy, and the weirdo with no social skills—and are then given just enough development to keep things moving. The guys are given a few moments of depth when it begins to sink in that their missing friend could be seriously injured or dead, but the script throws another gag our way before allowing too much introspection—and that's fine. The Hangover's only real mission is to make us laugh, and in that aspect it comes up aces, structured as a simple exercise in one-upping the worst case scenario, from stolen police cars to naked Asian gangsters in the trunk. Special props must also go to writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore for crafting a simple and retroactively obvious solution to the film's red herring of "Where's Doug?" an element I was very glad to see survive from early drafts of the script. Like the city at its core, The Hangover may be shallow, but it sure is fun.

The Hangover
Warner Bros.
Rated R; 96 min.

Buy tickets at Fandango.com

The Hangover courtesy Warner Bros.

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