More White Men Behaving Badly: A ‘Brain-On’ Look At The Hangover
By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García
For perspective’s sake, let me start with a confession: Tropic Thunder made me laugh aloud several times, even after the misgivings I had about Kirk Lazarus. The Alpa Chino twist in the village was brilliant, even if the villagers were written like something out of an Oliver Stone wet dream. And I regularly laugh as much as I grimace at South Park and Family Guy, neither of which is exactly friendly to … well, anybody. So I’m not opposed to “lowbrow” humor.
What I cannot abide is brainless humor. And so, when I tell you that The Hangover is celluloid excrement, I don’t say it lightly. I refuse to believe that it’s “just me.” But I’m telling you, R readers: this isn’t a comedy, or even a film. I’m now halfway convinced it’s proof those cheeky Hulu “alien plot” commercials are really taunting messages of truth from our secret alien overlords. Sure, you might say, “just turn your brain off, it’s a movie,” but don’t you need a working brain to enjoy any movie?
SPOILERS AHOY!
Ostensibly a Las Vegas travel ad masquerading as a bro-mantic comedy, the root of the problem is one common to a lot of modern comedies: we’re dealing not with characters, but anthropomorphic third-rate comedic tropes – Phil the Player (Bradley Cooper), Alan the Weirdo (Zack Galifanakis) and Stuart the Wuss (Ed Helms). Coding them as such is believable when you start a film, but there’s barely a hint of personal development, let alone the “growing up” moments that usually permeate these types of films.
What makes Hangover different, I suppose, is that Doug, the groom-to-be and Sensible Guy (Justin Bartha) doubles as the Macguffin, as his disappearance spurs the remaining trio to retrace their steps around town. Along the way, they’re seemingly beset upon by “wacky” characters of various stripes – specifically, different POCs.
There’s the effeminate Asian gangster (Ken Jeong) and his aggro henchmen; the incompetent POC Officer Garden (Cleo King, playing second banana to The Daily Show’s Rob Riggle); and, of course, Mike Tyson, here playing a Dr. Evil-fied caricature of himself. Even the non-aggressive POC characters, Eddie the chapel owner (Brian Callen, who’s of Italian and Irish descent but who’s character is vaguely coded as being Not From Around Here) and The Other Doug (Mike Epps) don’t amount to anything. I swear, when Epps’ character said, “Dere you go with dat word again” – and I tell you that he said dere instead of “there” – I cringed so hard my spine must have cracked. Eddie, who tries to defend the boys against the gangsters, gets shot and is literally left behind, never to be seen again. How could we not root for these guys, right?
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