Near the opening of The Hangover, four men gather on the rooftop of Caesar’s Palace, Sin City glittering like so much neon forbidden fruit below them. They are in Las Vegas to celebrate Doug’s (Justin Bartha) impending nuptials, or more accurately, see to it that his last night as a bachelor is as debauched as humanly possible. Flanked by his best friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms), and his future brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Doug smiles naively while Phil lifts a shot glass heavenward and intones, “To a night we’ll never forget.” So much for that idea.

When the three groomsmen wake up to pounding headaches the next morning, their hotel room looks like a war zone, though they can’t remember how it got that way. In fact, they have no memory of the previous night at all. The story gets crazier as their memory gets hazier. There’s a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the closet. Stu is missing a tooth. Phil is wearing a hospital bracelet. Mike Tyson is in the living room singing Phil Collins. When they ask for their car, the valet brings them a stolen police cruiser with a naked man in the trunk. And to make matters worse, Doug is nowhere to be found. Desperate to decode their collective amnesia, the trio must piece together the clues and retrace their steps to figure out where things went wrong if they are to have any hope of finding Doug and getting him to his wedding on time.

While Judd Apatow had nothing to do with The Hangover, (it was smartly directed by Todd Phillips of Old School fame) it is nonetheless his progeny. There is a real story here, and a clever one at that, despite being one of the crassest, envelope-pushing films in recent memory. The Hangover unwinds like a mystery novel; we are as lost as the characters are, so the ride is equally raucous and unexpected.

Populated with the now archetypical man-children (although Galifianakis is the most obvious example — a giant, bearded infant who wears a sport cup like it is a diaper and is even referred to as a child — all the men are in desperate need of growing up), the film is guided by a lucid plot rather than a series of non-connected misadventures, convincingly carrying its dumb heroes from hedonism to self-discovery. Together, the men form a badly-behaved Wizard of Oz triad — men in search of heart, courage and brains. (Does that make the tiger Toto?)

The Hangover does a splendid job of juxtaposing its wildly different lead characters. Cooper (who can play both the good guy and the jerk with equal conviction) appears to be the new “it” guy — it took you long enough, Hollywood. Helms, best known from his time on The Daily Show and The Office, is the meek, submissive one, dominated by his vicious, overbearing girlfriend. And Galifianakis, a muted comedian just starting to enter the national consciousness, steals the show despite a weird bit in which child molestation is used as fodder for a cheap laugh. (Ken Jeong and Daily Show alum Rob Riggle have cameos that, while funny, are played far too broadly to fit organically within the rest of the film.)

Vulgar, obscene and offensive, The Hangover is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a very long time and is surely destined to become a comedy classic.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.