The Hangover

The Hangover
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Todd Phillips
Written by	Jon Lucas Scott Moore
Produced by	Todd Phillips Daniel Goldberg
Starring	Bradley Cooper Ed Helms Zach Galifianakis Heather Graham Justin Bartha Jeffrey Tambor
Cinematography	Lawrence Sher
Edited by	Debra Neil-Fisher
Music by	Christophe Beck
Production company	Legendary Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	June 5, 2009
Running time	100 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$35 million (production)
Box office	$265,697,000 (worldwide)

The Hangover is a Template:Fy comedy film directed by Todd Phillips, who also directed the films Road Trip, Old School, and Starsky & Hutch. The main plot follows four friends who travel to Las Vegas for a bachelor party, only to wake up the next morning not remembering a thing and missing the groom, whose wedding is scheduled to occur the next day. The film stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, and Heather Graham. The film was released in North America on June 5, 2009 to critical praise and box office success.

Plot

Doug (Justin Bartha) is about to be married, so his friends — Phil (Bradley Cooper), a schoolteacher bored of the married life, Stu (Ed Helms), a dentist with a strict and controlling girlfriend of three years, and Doug's eccentric, socially-inept soon to be brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis) — take him to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Stu's confrontational girlfriend Melissa (Rachael Harris) constantly checks in and calls him, forcing him to lie to her about their true destination. It is later revealed that she cheated on him with a bartender while on a cruise, which Stu is willing to overlook to Phil's chagrin.

The four friends get a luxury suite at Caesars Palace, then sneak onto the roof of the hotel and toast to the night ahead. Skipping forward to the next morning, the three groomsmen awake in the villa with no memory of the previous night. They realize Doug is missing, Stu has lost a tooth, there's a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, and the villa's a wreck, filled with the aftermath of all the activities they engaged in the night before. Initially they believe Doug to have gone out for breakfast, but soon worry when they discover his phone left behind. They collect what clues they can from what little they remember to figure out what might have happened to Doug, with Alan discovering Stu's tooth in his pocket, Stu finding an ATM receipt for $800, and Alan also finding a VIP parking pass. Outside the hotel, Stu inquires as to why there is a mattress impaled on a statue, and a taxi driver tells him "Some guys just can't handle Vegas"; upon which the valet brings the three groomsmen a police car, which they had dropped off the night before.

Discovering that Phil is wearing a hospital bracelet and realising he must have been there the night before, the guys head to the hospital trying to obtain a lead and follow the potential trail that they left behind in their drunk escapades. The doctor identifies that they had traces of the date-rape drug "Rufalin", or roofies, in their blood, helping to explain their memory loss of the night before, and tells them that they had just come from a wedding at "Best Little Chapel", providing them with another clue. At the chapel, they learn that Stu had married a girl named Jade (Heather Graham) at some point in the night, giving her the his Grandmother's Holocaust ring as her wedding, that he had intended to use to propose to his girlfriend after Doug's wedding. He freaks out and looks to annul the wedding, but Eddie (Bryan Callen), the owner, tells them that they need to find Jade so both parties are present to complete the annulment. In the parking lot of the chapel, however, they are attacked by two thugs. The thugs smash their car windscreen, and then draw a gun. As Phil tries to drive the car to safety, the thugs accidentally shoot Eddie in the shoulder. The men escape and track down Jade, who turns out to be the mother of the baby, and works as a stripper and an escort. After obtaining a few more details about their night, cops burst into her apartment to arrest the three men for stealing their car. Phil highlights the embarrassment of the police losing their car, so the officers work out a deal in which the men 'volunteer' as targets for a demonstration of tasers as part of a tour of the police station with a group of children (the tasers are fired by volunteering children themselves). Afterwards, the three friends pick up their car from an impound and decide they should search it for clues to Doug's whereabouts. As they are driving back to the hotel, they hear a banging from the trunk. Convinced that they have found Doug, they rush to open the trunk, but upon opening it, they find instead a naked man, who attacks them with a crow bar before running away, leaving the men dumbfounded. Alan then admits to having spiked their drinks the night before with what he thought was ecstasy, hoping they would have a better time, but realizes the drug dealer must have sold him roofies instead.

They head back to the hotel to look for further evidence. Instead they discover famous boxing champion Mike Tyson. He tells them they stole the tiger from his mansion, and orders them to bring the tiger back to his place. On the way there it destroys their car after waking up from the five roofies that Alan put into a steak to feed the tiger, which they are then forced to push the car the rest of the way to Tyson's home. After returning the tiger and watching a tape from Tyson's security cameras of their activities from the night before (and learning Doug was still with them at that point in the night), they are attacked again by the thugs, who it turns out are led by the man they found in the trunk of their car, the effeminate Mr. Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong). The thugs run into their car, severely damaging it. According to Chow, they had mixed up bags the night before at a casino, and they were holding $80,000 of Chow's money that he had won. Chow demands it back in exchange for Doug, whom he has apparently kidnapped and taken for ransom with a sack over his head in his car. Unable to find the money, Alan decides to use his knowledge of counting cards to win the money in blackjack. After a night of playing blackjack and gaining suspicions from the casino, the boys manage to obtain $82,400 in winnings, and feel reinvigorated at finally being able to get Doug. The money is returned, but Chow had captured a different Doug than the one they're seeking (Mike Epps), who turns out to be the drug dealer that sold the roofies to Alan, realizing that he mixed up the drugs by accident when he sold them to Alan.

Phil is in the middle of calling Doug's fiancée to tell her they lost him, when Stu realizes where Doug is after drug-dealer Doug questions the reasoning behind the term "roofies". Stu deduces that the mattress they thought they had thrown from their hotel room earlier must have come from the hotel roof after he remembers that hotel windows do not open in Las Vegas, and therefore they must have locked Doug out on the roof as a prank. They find him, heavily sunburned, and have under 4 hours before the start of the wedding. Stu finds Jade before they leave to tell her that he can't stay married to her; she understands and takes the news very well, and returns his grandmother's ring. Stu promises to come back the following weekend and arranges a date with Jade to see if something can develop between them. Stu also finds out that the reason he lost his tooth is because Alan bet him that he wasn't a good enough dentist to pull out his own tooth. Driving home, Doug discovers he has $80,000 worth of casino chips in his pockets. They rush home and make it to the wedding just in time. Phil happily goes back to his family, while Stu breaks up with his girlfriend after she initiates an ugly confrontation.

As the wedding ends, the four friends reflect on their trip, expressing their shared desire to remember exactly what they did during the lost hours. Alan reveals he discovered Stu's camera which they had with them depicting most of the outrageous events of their forgotten night. The four agree to look at the pictures exactly one time, all together, before destroying the evidence.

Cast

• Bradley Cooper as Phil Wenneck
• Ed Helms as Stu Price
• Zach Galifianakis as Alan Garner
• Heather Graham as Jade
• Justin Bartha as Doug Billings
• Sasha Barrese as Tracy Garner
• Rachael Harris as Melissa
• Jeffrey Tambor as Sid Garner
• Ken Jeong as Mr. Chow
• Mike Tyson as Himself
• Mike Epps as Black Doug
• Rob Riggle as Officer Franklin
• Bryan Callen as Eddie Palermo
• Mike Vallely as Tuxedo Delivery Man
• Carrot Top as Himself (cameo in photo slideshow)
• Wayne Newton as Himself (cameo in photo slideshow)

Production

"I think part of what’s special about this movie is that none of the comedy comes from the characters being clever, like you see in a lot of sitcoms or movies, where the characters actually have a funny sense of humor. That’s not the case in this movie. So as an actor, you can really play the intensity and gravity and seriousness of the moment, and just rely on the circumstances being funny. The joke is kind of the situation you’re in, or the way you’re reacting to something, as opposed to the characters just saying something witty."

Ed Helms

Fifteen days of filming occurred in Nevada. The fictitious "Best Little Wedding Chapel" was filmed at 1236 S. Las Vegas Blvd. Actors Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper were all casual acquaintances before The Hangover was filmed, which Helms said he believed helped in establishing a rapport and chemistry between their characters. Helms credited director and producer Todd Phillips for "bringing together three guys who are really different, but really appreciate each other’s humor and sensibilities". Helms also said the fact that the story of the three characters growing closer and bonding informed the friendship between the three actors: "As you spend 14 hours a day together for three months, you see a lot of sides of somebody. We went through the wringer together, and that shared experience really made us genuine buddies."

Helms said filming The Hangover was more physically demanding than any other role he had done, and that he lost eight pounds while making the film. He said the most difficult day of shooting was the scene when Mr. Chow rams his car and beats up the main characters, which Helms said required many takes and was very painful, such as when a few of the punches and kicks accidentally landed and when his knees and shins were hurt while being pulled out of a window. Helms's missing tooth was not created with prosthetics or visual effects, but is naturally occurring: Helms never had an adult incisor grow, and got an dental implant as a teenager which was removed for filming.

Regarding the explicit shots in the final photo slideshow in which his character is seen receiving fellatio in an elevator, actor Zach Galifianakis confirmed that a prosthesis was used for the scene, and that he had been more embarrassed than anyone else during the creation of the shot. "You would think that I wouldn’t be the one who was embarrassed; I was extremely embarrassed. I really didn’t even want it in there. I offered Todd’s assistant a lot of money to convince him to take it out of the movie. I did. But it made it in there."

The plot was reportedly inspired by a real-life event that happened to Tripp Vinson, a producer friend of The Hangover executive producer Chris Bender. Vinson had gone missing from his own Vegas bachelor party, blacking out and waking up "in a strip club being threatened with a very, very large bill [he] was supposed to pay".

A few of the movie's driving scenes were filmed along a stretch of California Interstate 210, near the cities of Rialto and San Bernardino.

The film had a marketing budget of $40 million.

Us Weekly reported that Lindsay Lohan turned down the role of Jade, which eventually went to Heather Graham, because the screenplay "had no potential." The article claimed that Lohan's agent "tried hard to get Phillips to consider her, and when he finally agreed, Lindsay said she didn't like the script."

Critical reception

The Hangover has received primarily positive reviews. It currently holds a 78% positive response rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 181 professional reviews. Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars out of four, stating "Now this is what I'm talkin' about. The Hangover is a funny movie, flat out, all the way through. Its setup is funny. Every situation is funny. Most of the dialogue is funny almost line by line."

Box office

The Hangover proved to be very successful financially and will end its run as one of the highest grossing comedies of 2009. On its first day of release, the film drew an estimated $16.5 million on approximately 4,500 screens at 3,269 sites, beating out the big budgeted Land of the Lost — the other major new release of the weekend — for first day take. Although initial studio projections had the Disney/Pixar film Up holding on to the #1 slot for a second consecutive weekend, final revised figures, bolstered by a surprisingly strong Sunday showing, ultimately had The Hangover finishing first for the weekend with $45.0 million, narrowly edging out Up for the top spot, and more than doubling the take of Land of the Lost, which finished third with $18.8 million. Since its release, the film has earned $204,197,000 domestically and $61.5 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $265,697,000.

The movie beat even Warner Bros. own expectations, thinking the movie would finish third behind Up and Land of the Lost, but took advantage of the positive word-of-mouth and critical praise for The Hangover, with the negative buzz for Land of the Lost aiding it greatly.

Cultural references

• When the main characters try to locate Jade's apartment carrying the baby they found, Alan tries to remember the name of the film Three Men and a Baby by saying it had "Ted Danson, Magnum, P.I., and that Jewish comedian".
• In the hotel suite, Mike Tyson and his crew make reference to Omar Little, a character from The Wire.
• The scene showing Phil and Alan riding down the escalator before card-counting at the casino references a similar scene with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man. Additionally, Phil and Alan must win $80,000 to pay back Mr. Chow, which is also the amount that Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman's characters must recoup in Rain Man.
• The scene with the meet-up in the desert references Casino when the reflection is shown in Mr. Chow's sunglasses.
• When Doug tells Phil that Alan isn't supposed to be allowed to drink or gamble, Phil compares these instructions to a gremlin, referencing the film Gremlins and its instructions not to let mogwais eat after midnight or be exposed to water.
• When the characters first wake up after their night of partying, a still-smoking burned-out chair is shown in their hotel suite, a reference to a similar scene in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Sequel

Before the release of the film, Entertainment Weekly revealed that Warner Bros. is already planning a sequel for the film.

External links

• Official website
• The Hangover at IMDb
• The Hangover at Box Office Mojo
• The Hangover at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Hangover at AllMovie