It’s finally here, that R rated comedy for guys who just want to laugh at tasteless jokes and don’t need a real heartwarming story a la Apatow.
From all the commercials and trailers, The Hangover looks like the kind of movie where plot takes a backseat to dirty teenage jokes that most teenagers won’t get a chance to see because they aren’t seventeen years old. It’s refreshing that every now and then the studios will put out mindless comedies amidst all the special effects blockbusters because we like to laugh during the summer months as much as we like to watch things blow up and cars turn into robots and then back into cars again and then fight other robots that turn into cars too.
If you’ve turned on a television recently you’ve seen an ad for this movie or you have at least seen an ad for Cialis, I’m hoping that both will have the same effect on the viewer. Warner Bros. has been pushing this film harder than tobacco companies selling their product to high schoolers. They clearly think they have a winner on their hands and the trailers seem to be saying the same thing, “Hey you, ya you with the laughless life and leather belt that has moved on to it’s last notch before it’s time to buy a new one, this movie is for you. You will forget your boring and dull life and watch three guys live it up in Vegas in ways you can only imagine”. Warner Bros. seems higher on this film than Steve-O at his own Bar Mitzvah.
They didn’t wait for two weeks out to begin the full on assault in marketing, this film has been in the ether for the past six weeks. The studio wants to make sure you are more aware of the film and its release date than you are about every American made auto company going down the toilet faster than Robert Mitchum flushing his weed when the cops come knocking at the door. The film seems to have such positive buzz on it that the studio already commissioned a script for a sequel.
The Hangover is directed by Todd Phillips. You might have heard of his name as the director of Old School and Starsky and Hutch. Todd was on quite a role as the go to funny guy director until he made School for Scoundrels with Billy Bob Thornton. School was so bad that I actually thought it was a drama on par with No Country For Old Men (or maybe it’s just that I didn’t understand either of them). Old School however was probably one of the funniest films of the past ten years. I’ve seen the movie about 5 times and the first time I watched it I laughed so hard that I coughed out my steak dinner through my nostrils.
The film revolves around three friends at a bachelor party who wake up in Vegas with a hangover that would make Mel Gibson say “Wow! That’s a hangover” and they can’t find the groom. How can three guys in Vegas in a rated R comedy be bad? If nothing else it will be better than having to sit through an Ashton Kutcher movie called What Happens in Vegas rated PG-13 and contains less laughs than a very special episode of Blossom.
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