The Hangover (2009)

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Overview

A 2009 comedy portraying a group of guys heading off to Las Vegas to celebrate their friend's bachelor party. What was meant to be a simple and mostly tame time turns into a naked chinese man, tiger hunting, Mike Tyson punching nightmare as three of the groom's friends scramble to remember their lost night of partying and get the groom to his marriage ceremony in time. 

Directed by Todd Phillips and stars Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, and Bradley Cooper, the movie made over $432 million worldwide, becoming one of the highest grossing R-rated movies and the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time. 

Creation

The first screenplay, written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, set up the concept of a group of three friends running around town trying to piece together their night of heavy partying in order to find their missing, and soon to be married, friend. The story concept was based off of a real incident of one of Chris Bender's, the film's executive producer, friends. His friend was celebrating his bachelor party in Vegas and ended up blacking out, going missing, and waking up to find himself in a strip club with an enormous bill to pay.

After Warner Bros. purchased the script writer Jeremy Garelick and Todd Philllips rewrote some of it in order to add some of the movies more ridiculous situations including the random baby and Mike Tyson. 

Plot Summary

Tracy and Doug are counting the days until they are married with only a handful of formalities between them and wedded bliss. One of those formalities is the traditional bachelor party in which Doug's friends, Phil Wenneck and Stu Price, insist on traveling to Las Vegas to have the one last single man's party. Before their plans are set in stone Tracy insists that Doug bring along her brother, Alan. Alan is a bit...special and bringing him on the trip would endow his spirits. The four take Doug's soon to be father-in-law's car and road trip it to Caesars Palace right on th strip where they upgrade themselves to the full suite experience. The four travel to the rooftop to celebrate the start of one last night as single friends with a shot.

 Sign of a good night

The following morning Stu, Alan, and Phil all wake up to a trashed hotel room and with the mother of all hangovers, and a side of complete memory loss of the night before. After stumbling around they find a tiger in the bathroom, Stu missing a front tooth, a baby left in a closet, and their friend Doug completely missing. They attempt to regroup, eating breakfast and trying to piece anything together that they can. Discovering Phil was still wearing a hospital bracelet they set off to retrace their drunken steps. Waiting for the valet the group spot Doug's mattress from their room which has been tossed outside and impaled on one of the Caesars statues. If that wasn't bad enough the valet returns with their car, a police cruiser.

The three manage to make it to the hospital, albeit beating traffic with the aid of a police siren, and find the doctor who remembered treating Phil for minor injuries the night before. The doctor reads off to them Phil's blood work and discovers the group had been drugged, roofied, which explained their complete memory loss and extra horrible hangover. The doctor tells the group that he does remember the four of them the previous night continually mentioning a wedding, not Doug's wedding but rather a wedding they had just been to.

You could do worse 

Tracing their steps back to a local chapel Stu finds out that he was the lucky groom from the night before and somehow convinced a stripper, Jade, to be his wife. Stu isn't sure how is all happened, especially since he has a girlfriend already and was planning on proposing to her at Doug's wedding, and the three decide to head to Jade's apartment next. As they go to leave the chapel a handful of gangsters cut the car off and open fire on the guys but the three are able to escape unharmed. 

"They gave out rings at the Holocaust?" 

At Jade's they piece together that the baby from their hotel room is hers and seem on the verge of finally getting a handle on the previous night's events. Then two police officers bust into Jade's apartment and arrest all three of them, taking them to the police station. There they learn that the police cruiser was one they had stolen and had left their original car sitting in the middle of the Vegas strip. Phil is able to convince the two cops that being reported for getting their own cruiser stolen wasn't something they wanted on their record and there had to be a way to reconcile their crimes. Reconciling their crimes and getting their car back included being subject to a taser demonstration for a group of visiting schoolchildren.

 Ever since, I'm scared to open trunks

After driving through Vegas again the trio hear banging coming from the car's trunk, assuming it to be Doug they slam on the brakes and open the trunk. A naked chinese man flies out attacking the three before scampering off towards Vegas. In a bit of a depressed, hungover, and confused state Alan finally breaks down admitting that he was the one who drugged the group thinking that he was just giving them ecstacy. 

Not someone you want mad at you 

Having run out of clues and now pretty angry at Alan they all return to their suite hoping to catch a moment to think but only discover Mike Tyson waiting for them. Tyson threatens the group, telling them that the tiger in their bathroom was his and that they stole it and were going to be the ones to return it too. Stu decides to drug the cat with the remaining roofies and sneak the tiger out into their car. Along their way to Tyson's home the tiger begins to wake up and begins to tear up the car forcing the three out having to now push the car to Tyson.

At Tyson's mansion they are allowed to view the security footage from the night before, of them stealing the tiger, in hopes of getting more clues to Doug's whereabouts.  Dejected again with the lack of clues the three are rammed by another car and pulled out at gunpoint by the gangsters who attacked at the chapel and the naked man from their trunk, Leslie Chow. Chow says the group stole his money and kidnapped him and claims he has their friend and will kill him unless he gets his money back. 

"So long, gay boys!" 

Alan, Stu, Phil, and Jade all work on a scheme and head to the Vegas tables in hopes of earning the $80,000 they need the old fashioned way, through gambling. Alan uses his savant like skills of card counting, learned from a book, and with some help of the others to distract the casino security is able to count his way to the money they owe. The following day they travel out into the desert to meet Chow again and fork over the cash in exchange for Doug, except it isn't their friend Doug. It's the drug dealer Alan bought "ecstacy" from who Chow mistakenly thought was someone they cared about since he had been partying with the group the night before.

Making the call 

Completely dejected and with the wedding only hours away Phil finally gives in and calls Tracy to admit to her the truth and that the wedding is off. However just as Phil is talking to Tracy, Stu pieces the clues from the night together, tackles Phil, and tells Tracy they are on their way. Stu had a flashback to the infamous night and recalled playing a prank on Doug, hauling his still asleep in his mattress to the hotel roof and leaving him there. Rushing back they find Doug, dehydrated and sunburnt but alive and mostly well. With no planes available they must floor the pedal and call a few favors, with the help of Chow's money they had actually accidentally stolen, manage to clean up and dress up to make it on time to Doug's wedding. 

Despite being exceptionally late (and regardless of Doug's cartoonish sunburn), the wedding is a happy time with Stu finally standing up to his bitchy girlfriend. As the group reminisce after the wedding they discover a digital camera full of pictures from some of the still hazy memories. 

Critical Reception

Released in June of 2009, The Hangover  immediately became a success, despite the fact that it was an R-rated comedy without major, recognizable movie stars. On its very first day, it drew in $16 million in revenue and eventually closed out its first weekend with $44 million total. Considering that it was facing the second weekend of Pixar's Up, as well as it being in direct competition with the big-budgeted, Will Ferrell comedy Land of the Lost, this was a markedly huge win for the modestly budgeted film. After an astonishingly small 27% drop in revenue during its second weekend of release, and exceptional holds thereafter,  the movie went on to gross $277 million in North America and a worldwide gross $467 million total, enough to break the previous record for an R-rated film which was held by Beverly Hills Cop. 

Critically The Hangover was accepted by critics hailed as a fresh take of the R-rated comedy not willing to pull its punches. Best described as "flat-out" and being packed with great comedic dialogue as well as having unique and funny situational comedy. Some criticism was aimed at the portrayal of the woman in the movie and the idea of a crazy night in Vegas being almost cliched. It currently holds a 79% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.