D.C. MOVIE GUYS

The Hangover-You’ve heard the story before. A bunch of guys get together for a wild weekend in Las Vegas before one of them gets married. Crazed and wacky situations ensue, leaving everybody with “guys only” stories to tell and share for years afterward. That’s the basic premise of the new comedy The Hangover. After watching it, I’m fairly sure of one thing-nobody’s ever had a pre-wedding weekend like this one.

As the film begins, we meet Doug (Justin Barth) and two of his best friends, Phil (Bradley Cooper of Wedding Crashers) and Stu(Ed Helms of NBC’s The Office.) They’re heading to Vegas to blow off some steam and relax before Doug marries Tracy. She asks Doug to include her brother Alan (Zach Galifanakis,) a nervous guy with a strange past.

The foursome head off to Sin City with fun in mind. Renting a villa in a top of the line hotel, they seem to get off to a god start with a heartfelt toast while enjoying the view from the hotel’s roof. Thirteen hours later, Phil, Stu and Alan awaken to find a tiger in their suite’s bathroom, a baby in their car (which isn’t the car they came to Vegas in but a police cruiser) and no Doug-anywhere. Also missing are their memories of everything that happened the night before, from just after the toast to their awakening.

The trio find themselves racing the clock to re-create their escapades of the previous evening and find their friend before they have to be back in Los Angles for the wedding. They have only a few clues to work with, besides the baby and the tiger, of course, and the clock is ticking.

Director Todd Phillips (Old School) does a good job of juggling what is essentially a one joke plot rolling along while keeping us involved in his grown-up version of Where’s Waldo? screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past) don’t get too detailed about their character’s debauchery. Instead, they hit the highpoints of each guy’s outrageous acts and their reactions to them.

While Hangover’s main trio aren’t as endearingly goofy as Old School’s team of Vaughn, Farrell and Wilson, they each shine from time to time throughout. Cooper’s snarky, sarcastic Phil holds things together while Helms is a perfect comic foil as the nerdy, put upon Stu. Galifankis is the wild card as the not quite right Alan. Good supporting performances are turned in by Heather Graham as Jade and Mike Tyson as, well, Mike Tyson.

The movie’s primary flaws lie in the script. While this isn’t the kind of movie that’s structure dependent, there are several moments when it feels as if scenes and plot points have been dropped for no good reason. It gives the film a rushed, incomplete feel that lessens the fun. The script’s jokes at the expense of a gay, transvestite character seem gratuitous and tacky.

The Hangover does exactly what a film of its kind is supposed to do-it delvers broad, bawdy laughs while worrying about the consequences later. The easily offended should not attend. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce may not love the movie, but it does “bring the funny.” MPAA Rating: R for profanity, sexual content, nudity (including male frontal,) violence and drug content.

Joe’s Rating: Three (***) Stars.

Also opening June 5:

Land of the Lost- Will Farrell stars in this big screen version of the much beloved children’s television series, which ran Saturday mornings on NBC from 1974 to 1977. Farrell is Dr. Rick Marshall, a scientist who believes the answer to the world’s fossil fuel problems lies in traveling through time warps to areas where the past, present and future meet.

Laughed out of mainstream science, Marshall is a broken man until he meets grad student Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel.) She’s found a spot in the desert where such a time warp may exist. A reluctant Marshall joins her and a smooth talking desert tour guide/shop owner (Danny Mc Bride of HBO’s Eastbound & Down) into a cave which leads them into a time warp “hole” and a wild adventure.

The movie has a disjointed, sketch-like feel, not surprising when you consider that the film’s screenwriters, Chris Henche and Danny McNicholas, primary prior experience lies in episodic and sketch television, such as Saturday Night Live. Many moments have a far too loose improvisational feel, giving the movie a herky, jerky pace. The humor is surprisingly adult and raunchy for a film based on a kid’s television show and that seems positioned as a family film.

While Friel plays things straight, delightfully so, Farrell’s acting here is lazy and uninspired. McBride adds some laughs, though his character comes off as a slightly less sleazier version of his Eastbound & Down role. Somewhere drowning in this sloppy stew of a film is a good little science fiction comedy. In other words, the Land isn’t the only thing Lost here. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for profanity and sexually related and scatological humor. Joe’s Rating: One and One-Half (* ½) Stars.

Joe Barber’s entertainment reports and reviews can be heard Fridays through Sundays on the WTOP-FM Radio Network (103.5, 103.9, 107.7 & Wtop.com.) He can be seen regularly on WETA-TV’s Around Town and Fridays on Comcast Sports Net’s Washington Post Live.