The Hangover [Extended Cut] [Blu-ray] [2009] [Region Free]

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From Old School director Todd Phillips comes a comedy about a bachelor party gone very, very wrong. Two days before his wedding, Doug (Justin Bartha) drives to Las Ve with his best buddies Phil and Stu (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) and his future brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis), for a blow-out bachelor party they vow they'll never forget. But when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning with pounding headaches, they can't remember a thing. Their luxury hotel suite is beyond ted and the groom is nowhere to be found. With no clue about what happened and little time to spare, the trio must attempt to retrace their bad decisions from the night before in order to figure out where things went wrong, in the hope of finding Doug and getting him back to L.A. in time for his wedding. But the more they begin to uncover, the more they realize just how much trouble they're really in. Stills from The Hangover The HangoverThe HangoverThe HangoverThe Hangover From .co.uk ----------- If you like your humour broadside up, hold the subtlety, you'll want to nurse this Hangover with your best mates. The ensemble cast meshes perfectly--it's like a super-R-rated episode of Friends: silly, slapstick, and completely in the viewer's face. When four pals go to Ve to celebrate the imminent nuptials of one of them, they partake in a rooftop toast to "a night we'll never forget." But they're in for a big surprise: their celebration drinks were laced with date-rape drugs, so when they awake in their hotel room 12 hours later, not only are they hung over, but they can't remember what they did all night long. Oh, and they're missing the groom-to-be. The film is so cheerfully raunchy, so fiercely crude, that the humour becomes as intoxicating as the mind-altering substances. The standout in the ensemble is Zach Galifianakis, who is alternately creepy and hilarious. Ed Helm (The Office), in addition to his memory, loses a tooth in uncomfortably realistic fashion, and Bradley Cooper (He's Just Not That into You) has deadpan comic timing that whips along at the speed of light. "Ma'am, you have an incredible rack," he blares to a pedestrian from the squad car the guys have "borrowed." "I should have been a [bleeping] cop," he tells himself approvingly. Director Todd Phillips brings back his deft handling of the actors and the dude humour that worked so well in Old School, as well as the unctuous Dan Finnerty, memorable as a lounge/wedding singer in both films. But it's the nonstop volley of jokes--most cheerily politically incorrect--that grabs the audience and thes it around the hotel room. Just watch out for the tiger in the bathroom. --A.T. Hurley