
Overview
By all rights, THE HANGOVER should have been a minor success that did satisfactory box office and lived on through beer-laden guys’ night viewings. The marquee boasts no big-name stars, and the premise--an alcohol-soaked bachelor party--seems tried and tired. But OLD SCHOOL director Todd Phillips’s boys-night-out comedy is a blockbuster revelation that revels in raunchy jokes and happily leaves the border of propriety behind. Groom-to-be Doug (Justin Bartha, NATIONAL TREASURE) has planned an epic night in Las Vegas with his two best friends, Phil (Bradley Cooper, YES MAN) and Stu (Ed Helms, THE OFFICE), and his fiancée's awkward brother, Alan (comedian Zach Galifianakis). But it turns out that they partied a little too hard: Phil, Stu, and Alan wake up the next morning with a missing groom, a tiger in the hotel-room bathroom, a baby in the closet, and no memory of the night before. Though the funny script glories in the gutter, the credit for most of the film’s laughs goes to the excellent cast. Phillips’s OLD SCHOOL had Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Luke Wilson, but even though THE HANGOVER’s cast members aren’t A-listers (yet), they’re just as talented. Cooper and Helms have gotten laughs in WEDDING CRASHERS and THE OFFICE, respectively, but the perfectly awkward Galifianakis is a hilarious surprise. THE HANGOVER is sure to please everyone in the audience, except the easily offended who will cringe from the film’s foul first moments to its over-the-top closing credits.
Awards:
Main Cast & Crew:
Todd Phillips - Director
Bradley Cooper
Ed Helms
Zach Galifianakis
Heather Graham
Justin Bartha
Bryan Callen
Michael Li
Ken Jeong
Sasha Barrese
Rachael Harris
Details
- Format: DVD (Full Frame, Dubbed, Eco Amaray Case, Rated Version, Widescreen)
- Run Time: 100
- Color Format: Color
- UPC: 883929057832
- Genre: COMEDIES
- Rating: R (MPAA)
- Release Date: December 2009

Movie Reviews
Reviews:
"THE HANGOVER is surprisingly clever as well as R-rated rowdy....Helmoer Todd Phillips grabs attention right from the get-go with an edgy-funny prologue that triggers an extended flashback." - 05/24/2009 Variety
"[A] piercingly funny, twisted 'whatever-happens-in-Vegas' caper....It's the deadpan comic timing of director Phillips and his terrific cast that's ultimately responsible for THE HANGOVER's lasting effect." - 05/24/2009 Hollywood Reporter
4 stars out of 5 -- "Todd Phillips has directed a nasty, brutish and brilliant comedy for louts..." - 05/29/2009 Box Office
"Zach Galifianakis makes blinkered idiocy a cartoon rush..." -- Grade: B - 06/12/2009 Entertainment Weekly
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "THE HANGOVER is a funny movie, flat out, all the way through....Here is a movie that deserves every letter of its R rating." - 06/03/2009 Chicago Sun-Times
"What makes HANGOVER so funny is watching these hapless fools trying to piece together a lost night, forensic clue by forensic clue - 06/05/2009 Washington Post
3 stars out of 4 -- "THE HANGOVER proves that high concept, done right, can work deliriously well. Its simple premise, executed via an off-kilter narrative structure, is made even more absurdly funny by an offbeat cast." - 06/05/2009 USA Today
"[T]here is a sort of perverse brilliance or brilliant perverseness to be found in this story of a bachelor party gone terribly wrong." - 06/05/2009 Los Angeles Times
"[O]ften very funny. This is partly thanks to the three principal actors, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis, who incarnate familiar masculine stereotypes in ways that manage to be moderately fresh as well as soothingly familiar." - 06/05/2009 New York Times
"There's definite chemistry there between Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis. The script is a dream for a comedic actor, filled with opportunities for all three leads to shine, and all three do." - 06/03/2009 Movieline
4 stars out of 4 -- "[A] very funny and fast-paced detective story." - 06/04/2009 Premiere
4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]here's oodles of verbal humour...Jon Lucas and Scott Moore's inventively profane script missing few opportunities to tickle the funny bone as it charts the deranged aftermath of the ultimate Sin City stag night. - 06/09/2009 Total Film