The Hangover
2009
**½
Director: Todd Phillips
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha, Jeffrey Tambor, Sasha Barrese, Ken Jeong
Doug, his two best friends Phil and Stu, and his brother-in-law to be Alan travel to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. The morning after, the groom has vanished and the others wake up with no memory of the night before. The screenplay by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore was apparently inspired by someone's personal experiences, but the plot elements seem awfully familiar from past movies, such as Dude, Where's My Car? and Very Bad Things, or the Simpsons episode Viva Ned Flanders (1999). This unoriginal and unpromising set-up is brought up to date with some typically offensive 21st century humour. The resulting comedy is sweet, funny, predictable and infuriating in equal measures. The film was a massive hit, and it spawned two sequels, Part II (2011) and Part III (2013).
