"The Hangover"

# 126 on IMDB's Top 200. Reviewers on the website describe it as "truly, hilariously, funny" and "The tale of how three friends tries to find the lost groom before his wedding after their crazy night in Las Vegas. The movie gets funny from the Las Vegas part right till the end. There is hilarious stuff in every other scene. Not to be missed, one of the best comedy of 2009."

But ALL OF THIS IS A LIE. There are barely words that can describe my distaste for the people in that theater who laughed uproariously at the most disgusting and stupid things for over an hour and a half. In the film, Phil (played by a greasy Bradley Cooper) sets out to give his friend Doug the best bachelor party on the face of the planet by taking him to Las Vegas. We know from the first scene that the night has gone horribly wrong because Phil is calling Doug's fiance to fess up to something. The rest of the film takes place as one long flashback that skips the actual bachelor party bit in order to mimic the effects of a certain drug (a Forget-Me-Now if you will) which forces the characters to piece together the events that led up to Doug's disappearance. That's it. And in the end, the men are rewarded for their behaviors in a number of ways- I think I'll just go ahead and spoil it. Stu (Ed Helms) gets the courage to stand up to his controlling girlfriend, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) gains partial acceptance from Phil who after a night of debauchery funded by money stolen from his elementary school students gets to come home to a loving wife and son while Doug is forgiven at the altar for being sunburned and late to his wedding with absolutely no explanation. Everything about the wrap-up scene at the end smells of the horrors of Broland. It is okay to break up with your girlfriend if she doesn't want you to marry a stripper. It is okay to steal from kids to pay for gambling and strippers as long as you cover your own child's ears when a friend swears. The bachelor party is a man's due payment for putting up with marriage for the rest of his life. That logic is not once challenged throughout this film because every problem is solved through the ingenuity of the alpha male who has all the answers. They even win a total of over 160,000 dollars in the course of less than 48 hours! Perfect night, bros.

This, of course, just barely scratches the surface of what is wrong with the entire set up of this comedy. After Doug, Phil, Alan, and Stu take their first shot of Jager where one of the characters says, "this reminds me of college." I find it hard to believe that these guys ever left.

I'll just leave you with the memorable quotes page from IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119646/quotes