Hangover - movie review

My adorable younger brother (yes, the comp-hogging, karate chopping, little maniac) was trying to convince me to watch this movie since ages. I generally don't like watching English movies because I am partially deaf and Hollywood actors never enunciate clearly. However, for dearth of Hindi movies (Bollywood actors always shout dialogues :D), I finally gave in to his demands and started watching it on my DBB

From the word go my eyes were popping, my tongue was hanging out and I had a silly half-grin stuck on my face. Such stupendous gags are used to elicit the most surprised reaction out of you. The movie starts off with a bachelor party being planned for Doug who is soon going to marry Tracy. Alan, Tracy's brother, and Doug's 2 other friends decide to treat him to a weekend in Las Vegas.

Driving in his father-in-law's Mercedes convertible with good friends makes for a memorable road trip for the most happening night of Doug's life. The 3 friends rent a villa in Caesar's Palace Hotel and the next thing you know everything is messed up. There is a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the cupboard, one of the friends is missing his front tooth and there is no sign of Doug. The nightmare turns worse as none of them have any recollection of what happened the previous night. The 3 friends start trying to get over their Hangover and look for clues to find out what happened to Doug.

The first ploy that the movie uses to get and keep your attention is the reverse-story telling methodology where the main characters go on backing up into the previous night to find out when exactly they lost Doug. There are movies which have done this in a much better manner (Paycheck, Memento etc.). Nevertheless, in Hangover, there is a nice flow maintained in the story with all sub-plots converging towards the end. The second ploy is of course the slapstick humour and this really got me. I could not believe what I was actually seeing. Like I said, eyes and mouth wide open. What works for this movie is the heady combination of the previously mentioned ploys and excellent camaraderie between all the friends. I wish I could have seen more of the actor playing Doug, but the blond teacher guy made up for my cute-guy requirement.

To conclude, I would say, Hangover is definitely worth watching for its shock and laugh therapy ;D