Karnataka   

Perfect for a boys’ night out

A scene from ‘The Hangover’

The Hangover (English)

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham

Director: Todd Philips

Drunken revelry, Freudian irreverence, celebration of bachelorhood and the dream wish list — everything a guy ever wanted to do but never got a chance to. The Hangover is as perfect as it gets as far as boys’ night out entertainment goes.

Though the film seems to derive its inanely bizarre plot from the whacko Dude, Where’s My Car, this is quite grounded in reality… at least reality that can be aspired for.

You can steal Mike Tyson’s tiger, trash a five-star hotel, make a killing at the casinos, marry a stripper or jack a police car… it’s not still as unrealistically fantasy-like as Dude, Where’s My Car, where hot babe aliens are willing to give you pleasure if you can hand them the “continuum transfunctioner.” The Hangover goes deeper into the male psyche. The tapes of what they do when they are wasted can be sent to their shrinks who can spend hours psycho-analysing and deconstructing fears, insecurities, dreams and aspirations of the average Joe. The beauty of The Hangover is that director Todd Philips decides to pretend that all of that is incidental.

The focus of this film is on three drunk guys trying to piece together all that they did during a night they cannot remember and hence, the screenplay, too, has the licence to run riot between the blanks. We never get to see what they did, only the aftermath and a few fragments (now, stay till the very end if you want every thread tied up). The actors are a prize catch and you can’t wait for the boys to return. (Yes, they will return for a sequel next year!)

And, the rest of you boys reading this, what the heck are you waiting for? Go hang out with them now.

SUDHISH KAMATH

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