The Hangover
Fifteen years old and packed with loads of very funny, but not very nice people.
MOVIES
- I have to admit that it had been a while since I'd seen The Hangover and I was worried that it might have aged badly.
- And while it is certainly even more problematic now than it was on release, the underlying film is still pretty damn good.
- There also does need to be a reminder that depiction does not equal endorsement, so the behaviour of the characters is up to you to enjoy or not.
- The movie's biggest problems are where it comes to race, with the only two black guys being a drug dealer and Mike Tyson, a convicted rapist.
- Then there's Ken Jeong as an incredibly camp Asian gangster, and the guy who marries Stu (Ed Helms) and Jade (Heather Graham) being a human trafficker of undeclared, although implied Eastern European, descent.
- Simply put, if you're not Caucasian, you're not really going to find any positive representation in this movie.
- That said, the white guys are hardly depicted any better:
- Bradley Cooper's character is a teacher who steals from his students, openly declares how much he hates his life with his wife and child, and is not shy about using various slurs;
- Ed Helms' Stu is a human doormat to his abusive girlfriend who also repeatedly uses slurs for sex workers, including one he drunkenly married off-screen;
- And then there's Alan, who isn't quite right in the head to say the least, is implied to be a sex offender and pretty much idolises and attempts to emulate Cooper's toxic character.
- Good thing that this is a comedy film and you're not really supposed to take anything too seriously, because that's not your normal set of leads for any film really, is it?
- And the comedy really works, as does the story in general thanks to how well-written and performed the characters are.
- Pretty much the entire move takes place in Las Vegas, held up as on oasis of decadence and excess both in movie and in reality, but the movie wisely restrains itself from taking advantage of.
- The Hangover's title should make it clear that it's about the aftermath of the excess and the only details we get about the three leads' wild night are a series of photos in the end credits.
- Instead, the majority of the humour comes from the interactions between the three guys and the people they encounter as they try and piece together what happened.
- While things do keep escalating, events never get out of control in the sense of becoming unrealistic, although it certainly approaches that level at points.
- The best thing about the film is that the characters feel consistent throughout and everything they do feels like how those types of people would actually react to the shit they experience.
- Character work might not be something usually praised in crude comedies, but it's easily the best thing about The Hangover and why I still find it funny now.
- I also want to praise the fact that the dialogue, and especially the cursing, feels as in-character and natural as you'd expect from a more serious movie too.
- It often feels to me that too many movies aiming for a higher age rating tend to use cursing badly, feeling like they need to drop an F-bomb in every other sentence just because they can.
- This kind of writing often results in characters sounding a little odd to me, as you can often tell the actors are struggling to make those lines sound natural, but The Hangover avoids that pitfall in my opinion.
- And just to go back to the characters, it occurs to me that the only two characters who are depicted entirely positively are actually two women:
- There's Sasha Barrese as Tracy, who defends her oddball brother, Alan, from her father's teasing and is only ever concerned (justifiably) that the guys will make it back from Las Vegas so she can marry her fiancé, Doug.
- And Heather Graham's character, Jade, appears to be an incredibly sweet and supportive single mother, who just happens to also be a sex worker.
- Justin Bartha's Doug is probably the only guy who doesn't have some kind of outright negative quality, although he does come off as a bit of an enabler for the other guys' worst characteristics.
- Again, if The Hangover had been a more serious movie, it would've been difficult to write most of the characters as being people to care about.
- There are a lot of problems with The Hangover, but it's still a very funny film thanks to just how well-realised most of the characters are, even if they most likely aren't the kind of people you'd choose to spend time with. [8/10]
GAMES
- Nothing finished recently, although I have enjoyed the little bit of The Hong Kong Massacre I've played, even though I don't think it's really my thing.
- I'm also working my way through Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which so far feels like one step forward and two steps back, although I'll explain that more when/if I finish it.
TV
- I have resumed watching season six of The West Wing and hope to write about that in the next couple of weeks before moving on to the final season.
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