Across the Ist-a-Verse
"Let's have a bachelor party with chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze!" Twenty-five years ago this summer, Rick Gassko (Tom Hanks) lived every adolescent boy's fantasy in Bachelor Party. So when we saw the previews for The Hangover, we assumed the traditional story of boys behaving badly was making the rounds yet again.
We were wrong.
The film opens with a Las Vegas mystery. After waking up on the floor of a trashed casino suite, three groomsmen (Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and The Office's Ed Helms), realize that the groom has disappeared. They have no memory of the previous night, but they do have evidence of their festivities—a live chicken, a missing tooth, a burning sofa, and an infant in a mini-bar. They also have 24 hours to find their friend before he's scheduled to exchange vows.
The repartee between the three friends becomes increasingly hilarious as the hourglass dwindles and their leads turn into dead ends. 
Reconnaissance efforts re-construct a somewhat shocking narrative of the group's escapades (we're still wondering about that naked Asian mafia don), but the film uses regrettable behavior to celebrate male friendship, and this sentiment excuses even the conservative audience member from feeling offended.
A fantastic supporting cast includes Jeffrey Tambor as a jaded father of the bride, Heather Graham as a stripper-turned-blushing-newlywed, and Mike Tyson as himself.
The Hangover opens today.
Image Credit: Internet Movie Poster Award
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Post a comment (Comment Policy)