The Hangover

Bromances are all the rage. However, even though director Todd Phillips arguably started the modern big bang of midlife-male, fratboy-humoured flicks with the overrated Old School, it was Judd Apatow who took it to the next level with genre highs The 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Looking to get back in on the action, Phillips took inspiration from a real event (producer Tripp Vinson reportedly woke up in strip club with a huge bill) and set about crafting a "dude where's my stag?" scenario...

The weekend before his wedding, content groom Doug (Justin Bartha) heads off to Las Vegas for his stag party. Getting themselves a swanky hotel suite, married teacher Phil (Bradley Cooper), henpecked dentist Stu (Ed Helms) and tag-along weirdo Alan (Zach Galifianakis) propose a toast and set about getting blindingly drunk. Problem being, when the three groomsmen wake up, Doug is missing and they can't remember a thing.

Sadly, despite the resoundingly positive word of mouth, The Hangover is a lifeless and empty comedic experience. Broad and full of lazy clichés, the lowbrow 'laughs' on show are rarely intelligent and almost never funny. The kind of comedy (and this is a loose term) where we get jokes about being a convicted child molester ('cause that's funny), it seems that any time there is a joke drought, someone's head gets slammed off a car door.

And this is a real shame given the film's undeniably killer premise. The intriguing set-up is the best part on show as it paints a picture of a stag do every guy would love - picking up your bros, road trip there (in which, Phillips references his own movie Road Trip), renting the coolest room ever and then drinks upon a hotel roof with a view to die for. Then, following the movie's only inspired idea (we cut directly to the morning after), things descend into unfunny farce.

What could have been a hilarious-yet-moving tale of friendship and loyalty instead becomes a blatant clothesline upon which to hang a series of increasingly unlikely events. Literally everything you need to know is in the trailer - the guys wake up with no recollection of the previous night, there's a baby in the closet and a tiger in the bathroom, one of them is missing a tooth…

But instead of fun surprises, the 'revelations' are entirely predictable and don't offer any inventive shocks (how the gang never figured out where Doug was is the biggest mystery). Growing more outlandish by the minute, Phillips forgoes any sense of logic or reality by throwing everything at the wall in the hopes something will stick. Cops agree to let the gang off for stealing a police car if they'll let kids taser them, Mike Tyson appears in an awkward what-the-hell cameo, a woefully out of place Rain Man parody is chucked in, the trip back to the wedding sees the guys getting suits thrown to them from a van driving parallel along the motorway (seriously).

The problem isn't that the humour is crass or that it tries to be funny (that is the point of comedy), it's that there’s no substance or heart to go along with it. The Farrelly Brothers' There's Something About Mary was full of gross-out moments, but you fully cared about the likeable characters. Apatow's aforementioned movies were close to the bone, but they had a serious story worth following.

Ed Helms' girlfriend problems are mildly interesting, but any time the subject is given slight room to breathe the movie gets bored quickly and moves back to the slapstick. Current rising star Cooper is good as charismatic alpha male Phil, but the characterisation in general is so broadly-drawn that it's tough to care. As for the largely unknown Galifianakis, who plays weird Alan, he's nowhere near as endearing as hoped for.

Despite hordes of easy-to-please viewers lapping it up, The Hangover is a big disappointment. Not as well-observed or knowing as Apatow and lacking the root-for-the-hero heart the Farrelly usually inject, it seems that Todd Phillips is to comedy what Michael Bay is to action.