Jim Erickson’s Movie Review: The Hangover

Jim Erickson feels that, if this were another time of year when quality movies abound, his take on The Hangover may have been different. But he does recommend the new comedy.

Three noncommercial movies showing between now and a week from now, all very noncommercail indeed. Two of them are tonight, Terminator and Best in Show. Terminator shows at 8 at The Brickyard, 129 N. Rock Island and Best in Show, Christopher Guest's mockumentary about a dog show, is "after dark" at the Vagabond, 614 W. Douglas. And the Blank Page gallery, next Tuesday at 7:30, will show the Marx Brothers' early classic Duck Soup, with Zeppo and the rest, and revolution in Fredonia. The Blank Page 917 W. Douglas.

And in The Hangover, we have a raunchy an vulgar comedy that is really funny, and not nearly as offensive as you might suppose.

For one thing, the wild bachelor party that starts all the trouble is not shown to us except in a dozen or so stills at the very end; the movie is about the consequences of debauch, not he glories of it. And our heroes have no malice against anybody; even the support characters who might be classified as villains are not really after much beyond justice for offences they have suffered. There's a sort of eccentric spirit of innocence in The Hangover, and very little permanent damage is done. Even the appalling substance abuse that leads to total memory losses turns out to be mostly accidental. There are little hints of a serious world outside the frame, like the mention of herpes and the fact that you can't ioen the windows in Las Vegas hotels. But such unwelcome thoughts will probably not occur to most people. there is the usual obligatory reckless driving, but this is, after all, a Hollywood movie, even Star Trek found a way to include that. The delicate will frequently be offended, but they should know better than to try this typ0e of thing anyway. It has been suggested that the rating should have been NC-17, but I suspect that a lot of audience members won't even see the reason for that.

There is a certain amount of standard mystery fare in The Hangover, especially if you can include such questions as how a Begal tiger got into a suite in Las Vegas' Caesar's Palace standard mystery fare. But even if you can't, there's the presence of the baby and the absence of the groom to be to be accounted for, amoung other things. Like any good mystery, The Hangover solves the mysteries one by one as it goes along, til you have to say the plot makes more sense than the plots of many thrillers. There is a certain amount of parody of such things as shots of the Earps striding toward the camera and the Clantons, slow-motion camerawork as the villain approaches the hero with mayhem in mind, and stereotypes of tough cops and gays; but there is no systematic satire of anything, no sour feeling or real pessimism.

There seems to be a general impression that bushy-faced Zach Galifianakis pretty much steals the show, but I don't think it is so easily stolen. Galifianakis is that he makes this usually wearying element attractive. But my favorite was Ed Helm's toothshy dentist, not to mention such support roles as the tough cops and the gay men in the trunk.

Subtle and sophisticated, The Hangover is not. But it's funny, and I see no harm in it. Turn off your brain and enjoy.