"Do you know where the B💟est Little꧋ Wedding Chapel is?” asks one of the clueless heroes of Todd Phillips’ raucous latest. “Sure,” says a testy doctor from the Las Vegas ER.
“It’s on the corner of ‘Fuck Off’ and ‘Get a Map’.” If you’ve caught the trailer, you already know The Hangover contains knockabout farce a-plenty involving one trashed hotel suite, taser-happy cops and a cr🉐ooning Mike Tyson.
As that exchange proves, however, there’s oodles of verbal humour as well, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore’s inventively profane script missing few opportunities to tickle the f🍌unny bone as it charts the deranged aftermath of the ultimate Sin City stag night.
Marking a return to the sparkling form of Phillips’ earlier Road Trip and Old School , this thoroughly entertaining, often hilarious tale of three groomsmen sifting through the wreckage of a debauched evening that has🍸 left one of them (Ed Helms) missing a lateral incisor and all of them missing a groom (Justin Bartha) certainly delivers its fair share of ribald fratboy comedy.
In keeping with other recent ‘bromances’ like I Love You, Man and Role Models , though, The Hangover roots its outlandish elements in recognisably human relationships, Helms and Bradley Co🌠oper’s attempts to locate Bartha’s Doug and get him to the church on time being motivated by a genuine sense of filial responsibility towards a needy, AWOL comrade.
It’s this that sends them and Doug’s future brother🦩-in-law Alan (a film-stealing turn from stand-up comedian Zach Galifianakis) on a manic odyssey down The Strip that sees them ღminding a baby, returning a tiger, bonding with a stripper (Heather Graham) and dodging a demented Asian gangster (Ken Jeong).
The ensuing shenanigans 𒐪are convoluted enough to fill two pictures, which probably explains why a follow-up is already in the works. The gags wouldn’t land half as well, though, if we didn&rsquo🐭;t engage with Phillips’ protagonists as they stagger blearily through their waking nightmare.
Indeed, it’s knowing we’ve all been there♍ that ensures we do.
