The Hangover
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Todd Phillips
Produced by	Todd Phillips Daniel Goldberg
Written by	Jon Lucas Scott Moore
Starring	Bradley Cooper Ed Helms Zach Galifianakis Heather Graham Justin Bartha Jeffrey Tambor
Music by	Christophe Beck
Cinematography	Lawrence Sher
Editing by	Debra Neil-Fisher
Studio	Legendary Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	June 5, 2009
Running time	100 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$35 million[1]
Gross revenue	$301,009,780[2]

The Hangover is a 2009 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.

[edit] 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, 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 girlfriend (Rachael Harris) constantly calls him, forcing him to lie to her about their destination.

The four friends get a suite at Caesars Palace, then sneak onto the roof of the hotel and toast to the night ahead. The next morning, the three groomsmen awake in the suite 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 suite's a wreck. Initially they believe Doug has gone for breakfast, but worry when they find his phone still in the room. Alan discovers Stu's tooth in his pocket and a VIP parking pass, and Stu finds an ATM receipt for $800. 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." The valet brings the groomsmen a police car that they dropped off the night before.

Discovering that Phil is wearing a hospital bracelet, the guys head to the hospital and learn that they had roofies in their blood, explaining their memory loss. Their doctor tells them they came from a wedding at the "Best Little Chapel". At the chapel they learn that Stu married a girl named Jade (Heather Graham) and gave her his grandmother's Holocaust ring in the ceremony, which he had intended to use to propose to his girlfriend after Doug's wedding. In the parking lot they are attacked by two Asian thugs who smash their car windshield and shoot the chapel owner in the shoulder. The men escape and track down Jade, who turns out to be the baby's mother and works as an escort and stripper. Cops burst into her apartment to arrest the three men for stealing their police car. Phil points out the potential embarrassment for the officers if the story of their lost squad car got out, so they work out a deal in which the men "volunteer" as targets for a taser demonstration. The three friends retrieve their car from an impound and search it for clues to Doug's whereabouts, but as they are driving back to the hotel, they hear a banging from the trunk. When they open it to investigate, they are attacked by a small, naked Asian man who then runs away. Alan admits to spiking 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 return to the hotel to look for further evidence, but find former boxing champion Mike Tyson in their room, who knocks out Alan and orders them to return his tiger, which they stole from his mansion during the night. They give the tiger a steak laced with roofies so they can transport it, but on the way it wakes up and damages their car. They 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, they are attacked again by the thugs, who, it turns out, are led by the man they found in the trunk of their car, Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong). According to Chow, they mixed up bags at a casino the night before, and the groomsmen have $80,000 of his money. Chow demands it back in exchange for Doug, whom he has kidnapped. Unable to find the money, Alan uses his knowledge of card counting to win it playing blackjack. The money is returned, but Chow had kidnapped a different Doug (Mike Epps), who turns out to be the drug dealer who sold Alan the roofies.

Stu realizes where Doug is after drug-dealer Doug questions the reasoning behind the term "roofies", saying they are more likely to leave you on the floor than on the roof. Stu deduces that the mattress they thought they had thrown from their hotel room must have come from the roof after he remembers that hotel windows do not open in Las Vegas, and therefore they must have locked Doug on the roof as a prank. They find him, heavily sunburned, with less than four hours before the wedding. Stu finds Jade before they leave to tell her that he can't stay married to her, but promises to come back the following weekend to see what develops between them. Stu also learns he lost his tooth because Alan bet him that he wasn't a good enough dentist to pull out his own tooth. Doug discovers he has $80,000 worth of casino chips in his pockets as they rush home and make it to the wedding. Phil goes back to his family, while Stu breaks up with his girlfriend.

As the wedding ends, the four friends reflect on their trip and express their desire to remember everything they did during the lost hours. When Alan discovers a camera 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 before destroying the evidence.

[edit] 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 Leslie 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)

[edit] Production

Fifteen days of filming occurred in Nevada.^[4] 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".^[3] 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."^[3]

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 attacks 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.^[3] 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 a dental implant as a teenager which was removed for filming.^[5]

Regarding the explicit shots in the final photo slide show 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."^[6]

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".^[7]

The script started as a Vegas bachelor party gone wrong written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, but was substantially rewritten by Jeremy Garelick and director Todd Phillips, who added Mike Tyson and his tiger, the baby, and the cop car. However, the Writers Guild of America did not permit their work to be credited due to what Phillips described as an "insane" and "nebulous" set of rules.^[8][9][7]

A few of the driving scenes were filmed along a stretch of California Interstate 210, near the cities of Rialto and San Bernardino.^{[citation needed]}

The film had a marketing budget of $40 million.^[1]

Us Weekly reported that Lindsay Lohan turned down the role of Jade, which eventually went to Heather Graham, because the screenplay "had no potential".^[10] 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."

[edit] Critical reception

The Hangover has received primarily positive reviews. It holds a 79% positive response rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 182 professional reviews.^[11] 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."^[12]

Although widely critically praised "if you are funny enough you can get away with anything"^[13] many critics have noted the weak character development. Ebert despite his praise mentions "I won't go so far as to describe it as a character study" but that the film is more than the sum of its parts that may at first seem a little generic or cliched^[14], many other films such as Very Bad Things having explored the idea of a weekend in Vegas gone wrong. Critics have complained about racial stereotyping, in particular the Asian gangster.^[15]

[edit] Box office

The Hangover proved to be very successful financially. 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.^[16] 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.^[17] Since its release, the film has earned $223,766,214 domestically and $74.7 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $298,466,214.^[2]

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.^[17][18]

[edit] Cultural references

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (June 2009)

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2009)

• 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 actor".
• The way Phil and Alan are dressed as they ride down the escalator and 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 and TV-screens turned onto noise are shown in their hotel suite, a reference to a similar scene in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

[edit] Sequel

Before the release of the film, Entertainment Weekly revealed that Warner Bros. is already planning a sequel for the film.^[19] Variety later reported in July 2009 that production on The Hangover 2 will begin in October 2010 for a Memorial Day weekend 2011 release, following the same production schedule used for the first film.^[20]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official website
• The Hangover at the Internet Movie Database
• The Hangover at Box Office Mojo
• The Hangover at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Hangover at Allmovie