Upon promising each other that they’ll never forget this weekend, the four of them descend through a night we don’t see but can only imagine, as we cut to the four lying on their hotel floor covered and surrounded by clothes, babies, tigers, people just leaving, and a degradation usually reserved for guys much younger than they are. What the audience is left with then is a comedy that tries to reconcile its eagerness as a more mature variation on the Old School theme and succumb to the depravity and humiliating circumstance that provides the foundation for the story and its characters’ behaviorisms.

The Hangover could have been a great movie, but the element of discovery that plays so heavily into its development and gives its cast a comic footing is so straightforward. Not as inspired or cunning as it could be, but still an entertaining and diversionary comedy all its own, it plays to an audience that feels the presence of suggestion, a device that once employed establishes the film as a collection of scenes. In The Hangover, whatever got our four anti-heroes in trouble is uniquely staged, and mostly funny, but in the end rather formulaic. It doesn’t help too that Galifianakis -- a comedian capable of saying something so left-field it’s actually intelligent, a comic so skilled with timing and the presence of metaphor -- is instead mostly a bit-player, and that’s somewhat disappointing, because he is worthy of a movie made just for him.

Again, those moments of transcendent and -- sometimes -- improvised comic grace are worth it and reveal a story and cast worth rooting for. Troublesome though, and even with their affability and collective presence, there is a lack of real on-screen chemistry that permeates the foursome. For a bunch that are supposedly fully aware of their mutual love and respect, it feels almost as if they’ve just met each other, and the direction doesn’t quite capture the essence of friendship that feeds and grows -- superficially, of course -- off the power of hilarious consequences that Phillips drove home in his Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell vehicle. Mostly funny, occasionally witty and left-field, and with a few surprises strung along the way, The Hangover is not consistent, and ends in the most agreeable fashion, but it does offer further proof that Phillips’s movies can be crass, fun, and somehow always so universal.

Film Grade: B-

Synopsis:

Two days before his wedding, Doug and his three friends drive to Las Vegas for a blow-out bachelor party they'll never forget. But, in fact, when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning, they can't remember a thing. For some reason, they find a tiger in the bathroom and a six-month-old baby in the closet of their suite at Caesars Palace. The one thing they can't find is Doug. With no clue as to what transpired and little time to spare, the trio must retrace their hazy steps ...