Audiences appetites are so over-saturated for the banality and crassness dredged up by Hollywood’s raunch-comedy pool that when a smarter film comes along they often don’t know what to make of it. Perhaps the greatest achievement of 2009’s “The Hangover” was that the film managed to be both funny and entertaining without coming off as childish or insulting viewer’s already abused intelligence. The film raked in $277M worldwide, followed up by 2011’s “The Hangover Part II,” riding on its predecessor’s coattails to a box office return of $254M. And now in 2013 we have the anticipated “The Hangover Part III,” which, while breaking no new ground for the franchise, is a probable ending to the saga, and an honestly entertaining and humorous film that will please fans and newcomers alike.
The previous “Hangover” films, which centered on the hijinks that accompanied two separate weddings, here gets a remake as the ‘Wolf Pack’ (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, and Justin Bartha) are coerced into tracking down an infamous criminal, ‘Mr. Chow,’ when their compatriot Doug is kidnapped by a angry mobster, Marshall (John Goodman). Along the way there are a lot of pratfalls, as what begins as a intervention to help save the goofy Alan (Galafinakis) from himself turns into a nightmare that leads the pack from California to Tijuana, Mexico, until ultimately bringing them back to the dreaded city of Las Vegas where it all began.
The star of “The Hangover Part III” is undoubtedly Zach Galifinakis, who somehow creates a ridiculous character we can’t help but love no matter how stupid he is. The opening scene, which shows Alan driving down the freeway towing a giraffe he bought in a trailer hitched to his car is so funny you’ll double over in laughter. Subsequent scenes, such as when he sings “Ave Maria” at his father’s funeral show the appeal the bearded Alan has on wooing audiences. His character often smacks of a plethora of flat characters brought to the screen by Will Farrell, but thankfully isn’t a shred as annoying in their presentation.
The pack is unconventionally led by Phil, played by Bradley Cooper, and it’s interesting to see Cooper blend into the background of this comedy like he never left, especially riding the success of recent films such as “Silver Linings Playbook” or this year’s “The Place Beyond the Pines.” Cooper is content to be a team player, which is endearing given some actors’ temptation to steal the show, and brings stability to the movie in the right places. The pack’s other players such as Ed Helms and Justin Bartha are fairly competent, and here we find performances that are fairly entertaining and, despite Bartha’s limited screen time (he spends a majority of the film kidnapped) add to an overall enjoyable experience.
‘Mr. Chow’ (played by Ken Jong – who interestingly also has a M.D.) was probably intended to shake up the movie and take to focus off the Wolf Pack, but honestly some of his scenes were just too goofy in general and you can tell the movie’s writers were relying on him a little too heavily for comic relief. Some scenes, such as when he tricks the pack into accompanying him on a heist are honestly funny, but others, such as when he parachutes off a casino roof amidst strobe lights, as well as later scenes where his life is actually in danger, make his character more unbelievable than one would have hoped.
It was also an interesting decision to place John Goodman as the evil Marshall – not to say he does a disservice to the role or brings the movie down, but one has to wonder why the filmmakers would choose a man coming off last year’s ‘Best Picture’-winning “Argo” to fill the shoes of a villain with what amounts to probably seven minutes of screen time.
The film, however, gets enough right during its run-time to be both entertaining, and, at times, actually endearing. The focus that the movie places on the psychological problems of Alan are astute in their presentation and bring warmth to the movie in unlikely places. “He’s never going to get better,” Phil and another pack member muse. “We’re all he’s got.” As “The Hangover Part III” can be an assumed end to the series, it is interesting it focused on bringing Alan (whose friends all have fulfilling lives of their own) full circle instead of leaving him as merely comic relief. That said, the movie also brings the events of the first film to a nice close as the Wolf Pack is brought back to Sin City, as Stu mutters, “Someone should burn this place to the ground.”
At the end of the day, “The Hangover Part III” is a competent film and a decent way to spend 100 minutes at the movies. No, it’s not going to win an Oscar and you’re not going to find next year’s ‘Best Picture’ hiding between the previews and the credits, but you will find a film that is often funny and never boring, which might honestly be enough. The film has more violence than its predecessors (one scene toward the end is kind of, for lack of a better word, mean), but manages to somehow wrap the proceedings up in a sweet and soothingly predictable way. You could really do a lot worse than “The Hangover Part III;” and if you’re looking for a fun movie to launch the summer season, you really couldn’t do a lot better.
– by Mark Ziobro
