Film review: The Hangover

THE HANGOVER (15) ****

DIRECTED BY: TODD PHILLIPS

STARRING: BRAD COOPER, ED HELMS, ZACH GALIFIANAKIS, JUSTIN BARTHA

IT'S been a good year for American comedy. No, scratch that. It's been a good year for a specific kind of raucous, male-centric American comedy that uses layers of outrageous jokes, idiotic scrapes and alpha-male posturing to explore the intricacies of male friendship and that innate fear that exists among men of a certain age that maturity somehow represents the death of the soul.

So far in 2009, both Role Models and I Love You, Man have had great comic mileage out of this formula, but that doesn't mean it's easy to pull off. Go too far and you risk descending into mirthless crudity with unlikeable characters that reinforce the stereotype that all guys are unreconstructed cavemen. So it's a relief to discover that The Hangover – which revolves around a group of guys trying to reconstruct what happened at a Vegas stag weekend none of them can remember – not only gets almost everything right in this respect, it kicks this sub-genre up a gear with an anarchic sense of fun and a consistently high gags-to-giggle ratio that knows when to push the envelop of taste and when to pull back a little.

There are jokes, for instance, that, were they to be divulged on paper out of context, would make the film sound horrendous (one involves the Holocaust), yet on screen, they're hilarious because they're part of a well-constructed script that minimises offence by ensuring said jokes always rebound on to the person making them.

That well-honed script comes from the unlikely source of Four Christmases /Ghosts of Girlfriends Past screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, which just goes to show the difference a director with a genuine feel for comedy can make. The Hangover has that in Todd Phillips, who returns to the form he exhibited in the endearing Old School, displaying a sure touch when it comes to pacing and understanding the comedic value of withholding information rather than overloading scenes with the kind of gross-out debauchery one might expect from a film about a bachelor party gone wrong.

The main characters here are all suffering from a collective drug and alcohol-induced memory blackout, so Phillips does the smart thing and adheres to this conceit by ensuring we see everything through their bleary eyes. We're not party to anything they don't remember, which makes it more fun as they try to piece together the night of carnage that has resulted in a trashed suite, a tiger in their bathroom, a baby in their closet and a groom that's nowhere to be found. As the film kicks off, the worst has already happened and, in one of those start-near-the-end openings that directors frequently deploy to give their films a sense of immediacy, we're treated to the sight of three dishevelled friends calling an anxious bride on her wedding day to inform her that her impending nuptials are unlikely to happen. The film then rewinds a couple of days to properly introduce us to Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis), three sort-of-friends who are escorting their mutual buddy Doug (Justin Bartha) to Las Vegas for his pre-wedding blow-out.

Each conforms to various stereotypes of the genre, yet each actor manages to imbue their characters with enough zing to make them feel fresh and familiar. As the group's ultra-cool de facto leader, Cooper's easy-going confidence reinforces Phil's many insecurities: he looks as if he should be some high- powered, model-dating executive, but he's really a schoolteacher with a wife and kid who hasn't yet realised how fulfilling that life can be.

Helms, meanwhile, plays the standard hen-pecked nerd, a dentist too lacking in self-worth to dump his long-term girlfriend, who not only openly cheated on him, but continues to treat him like crap. He's great at delivering that brand of uptight, ineffectual rage when things go wrong, but he also has a certain animal magnetism that gives this character-type an amusing, authoritative presence as the film progresses.

However, it's Galifianakis – in a star-making turn – who gets the lion's share of the laughs. He plays the groom's weird, slightly creepy, about-to-be-brother-in-law, a man who, as one character puts it, "is literally too stupid to insult", but whose bizarre non-sequiturs are often oddly perceptive. He looks like a giant bearded baby, and he acts like one too, desperate for the acceptance and affection of his new family of friends – but just as likely to cause chaos if left unsupervised for too long.

Of course, it also helps that this triumvirate are relatively unknown quantities on screen. After countless movies featuring various combinations of the Frat Pack (Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Owen and/or Luke Wilson) or the Judd Apatow geek clique (Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Jonah Hill et al), it's refreshing to be presented with new comedy talent that can generate the kind of chemistry it often takes years to harness.

They're easy to root for, which helps increase the film's anxiety level as clues about their night of debauchery begin to materialise. That said, this is not a film that ends on a sour note. As with the worst hangover, the relief that accompanies its passing is replicated here with a no harm/no foul happy ending, while a fill-in-the-blanks photomontage over the end credits lets us retrospectively laugh at the shameful behaviour of others. It's funny stuff. And clever too.