The Hangover (2009)

The buzz about The Hangover was that it was so deliciously offbeat and delightfully funny that it should have received an Oscar nomination. And the trailer looked promising with its suggestion of a wild pre-wedding "bachelor's night out" that no one could remember, resulting in one groomsman missing a tooth, a baby in the closet, a live tiger in the bathroom, and the groom-to-be nowhere to be found! What a hoot, right? I didn't find the mystery cogent or the script very comedic, however. Maybe if there had been more physical humor and less "Omigod what do we do now?" Maybe make the baby half as funny as Look Who's Talking -- or the whole movie one-fourth as funny as The Whole Nine Yards? I just didn't care about these guys, even fraught with OMG-itis. Zach Galfaniakis had the best role as the slightly imbalanced and easily frazzled brother who shouldn't have been brought into the situation in the first place. Ed Helms was marginally funny at times as the uptight dentist who's gotten in over his head (though he overdid the wild-panic look too often for me). All told, the normally inexplicable Heather Graham did pretty well in her role (for a stripper with a heart of gold). The movie's saving grace was the closing credits, where we get to scan through every photo taken during the wild night out, which answers some questions as far as what actually happened that night -- except it was anticlimactic and I still didn't care. The only thing remaining to explain is: Why start a marriage with every man in the wedding party (including the father of the bride) colluding in a bald-faced lie to every woman in the wedding party -- that the bachelor's party is going to be mild and tame and certainly not intent on consuming obscene amounts of liquor and drugs over lap dances with strippers in Vegas (and that's before things got worse)? I'm not saying the movie shouldn't have been made -- the premise was quite promising -- it just could have been written, acted, and directed much better for the most part. I mean, at least Wedding Crashers had a point! 3.5 stars.