The Hangover

A comedy set in Las Vegas. Four friends set off for a stag weekend. They raise a glass on the roof of the hotel. The next morning three of them wake up in the room. The groom is missing, one has lost a tooth, there is a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the cupboard. None of them remembers the night. From there the film is an investigation running backwards. Receipts, a hospital record, a police vehicle, a wedding chapel and a police car found in a car park. What the narrative is interested in is not the party but reconstruction: the film never shows the night and the audience learns it at the same moment as the characters, and that structure is the engine of the comedy. Alan is the narrative's loose element. He is the person nobody in the group wants, and the best lines are his. There is also a gangster line, and a matter of a wrong bag runs through it. The real night is only shown in the credits, as photographs. It was shot in real hotels in Las Vegas. A boxing champion appears as himself. The budget stayed within the standards of its genre and it took an unexpected amount at the box office; it became one of the most watched comedies of the year. Zach Galifianakis reached a wide audience with it. Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham and Ken Jeong are in the cast. Todd Phillips directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes crude comedy and puzzle structure together. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take parts of the humour now; several jokes show their age.