A smug and literary discussion of the film The Hangover

The Hangover
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Warner Bros, 2009

A recent professor of mine made our class break the habit of writing in the first person. He argued that it makes for weak writing; if the writing is good and well-argued, you shouldn’t need to insert yourself into it. I agree, and I’m trying my best to pull myself out of my reviews. It’s difficult, but it ultimately makes for a more objective review.

That being said, sometimes writing in the first person is just more…fun. There are some films that don’t deserve the fancy-pants academic review (if you can even call my reviews those).

With this in mind, I declare the following: I didn’t like The Hangover.

Yeah, I said it. The lone dissenter against one of this summer’s biggest surprise hits. And before accusing me of being contrary for contrary’s sake, let me say that I really wanted to like it.

Maybe it’s the fact that everybody in the known universe saw it before I did, and made a point to tell me how “amazing,” “hilarious,” and “incredible” it was, causing a maelstrom of unreachably high expectations.

But that’s not right, because my expectations weren’t that high – I just wanted to be proven wrong.  I waited this long only because I didn’t really want to see it in the first place. What I saw in the unrelenting marketing for this film was comedy fare that’s been done before, from a director whose films have a few good moments in them but ultimately cater to a dominantly (although not entirely) frat-boy audience – an audience who can appreciate the experience of the drunken night before and the nostalgic, epic tales follow. A hangover, if you will. A phenomenon which this author doesn’t fully identify with, because his interests and ideas of fun are more akin to that of a 57-year-old retiree.

So maybe why I didn’t like it is that the central premise, a memory-erasing night of debauchery in Las Vegas, just didn’t appeal to me, despite the presence of both Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis (who, like Will Ferrell in Old School, exists outside of the film as the guy who is way funnier and way smarter than the script because he’s simply doing his own thing).

But that’s not fair, either. My own personal biases can’t factor into what I think of a film – what sort of reviewer would I be? Maybe…just maybe… it’s that in a golden age of Arrested Development, Ricky Gervais and 30 Rock, I’m spoiled and just expect more from comedy. I expect more than Asians who swear a lot in exaggerated accents. I expect more than a generic and 2-year-old-stale rock soundtrack. I expect more than another cameo from another sports icon from yesteryear. I expect more than the same cover band that Todd Phillips insists on featuring in all of his movies, doing the same joke – singing dirty songs as lounge singers.  I expect more than jokes involving the word ‘faggot.’ I expect more than bitter, shrill examples of women who exist only to hold back the men in these movies from having a good time, that is, going to Vegas to get drunk and marry strippers, because this is just what men do. And I certainly expect more than an ending that proves to be the comedic equivalent of “it was all a dream!”

Maybe that’s why I didn’t like it.