Director: Todd Phillips
The Hangover is rather easy to deconstruct as formulaic and ultimately dis-spiriting. We have Our Hero, who's a real Cool Guy and Loves To Party, and who disapproves of Lame Guy's Overly Controlling Girlfriend. Then we have The Butt Of Jokes who doesn't understand how to act in social situations (his pop culture touchstones are woefully out of date!) and whom our main characters mock endlessly.
That said, Zach Galifinakis steals the show as The Butt Of Jokes. Furthermore, the plot of The Hangover is actually quite good for a comedy film, and is the true strength of the film - like our heroes, we have no idea what happened. I am not a fan of the Todd Phillips oeuvre, but this is probably the best of the bunch. I do still lament the state of film comedy - I have low expectations for anything Judd Apatow will undertake in the future, and certainly no expectations for the Phillips machine.
good point about the plot. "missions" are work well for comedic vehicles. 'get him to the greek' operates the same way. set up some mission and have the goofballs run through it to completion. 'the hangover' is much better though. after the first 40 minutes of 'greek,' the movie takes a plunge and only mildly resuscitates itself with a mildly funny scene involving drugs and a furry wall.
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