Ed Helms owns The Hangover. He puts out the most energy and and comic pizazz. By far. Zach Galifianakis, I have to say, disappointed me somewhat. Certainly in contrast to Helms. He’s just playing the primitive oafish infant who causes all the trouble…not impressed. Bradley Cooper scores nicely. I’ve never really tuned into him before, but he’s given his best performance yet. Justin Bartha is fine but he’s the absent sacrificial lamb. The second funniest guy is Ken Jeong — a madman.
I was fairly pleased with The Hangover. It’s much better than any number of drunk-adolescent-guys-get-into-into-serious-trouble-and-have-to-extricate-themselves-the-next-morning movies I’ve seen over the last 27 or 28 years, when the genre more or less began with films like Losin’ It and Risky Business. It put me in a good mood. I laughed from time to time. I loved the line about how “roofies” should be called “floories” because that’s where you always end up — on the floor. And the closing video montage that finally shows us what happened works nicely.
But it’s not a landmark film. It’s a B-plus. It takes a while to get going. (Jett leaned over at the 15-minute mark and whispered. “It’s not funny.”) But if I were a Warner Bros. exec, I’d definitely call for a sequel, especially considering what it made this weekend.