The Hangover

Before even going out to see it, you have to understand that “The Hangover” is a movie that has been released to the world with nothing to lose. It’s a movie about four guys, three of whom are hosting a bachelor party for their best friend in Las Vegas. A movie with a plot like that probably doesn’t cost too much to make, and indeed only took fifteen days (that’s only two weeks folks) to wrap filming. That being said, it’s made over $100 million in two weeks. It set the record for highest grossing opening weekend for an “R” rated comedy ever. Not too shabby for a director without a hit in almost a decade and a cast full of veritable unknowns.

Todd Phillips is the director. He hasn’t had a funny film since 2003 with “Old School.” The film that set-up Vince Vaughn’s funny man comeback and put Will Ferrell on the map. (Funnily enough, “Old School” did nothing to further Luke Wilson’s career- the best actor of all three…) Then there’s the cast of “The Hangover”.  Bradley Cooper as Phil is the headliner- we know him as the jackass bully belonging to Rachel McAdams in “The Wedding Crashers”. Beyond that, Cooper’s had roles in movies like Matthew McConaughey’s “Failure to Launch,” and Rainn Wilson’s “The Rocker” and the 2009 Valentine’s Day bomb “He’s Just Not That Into You”.

Ed Helms as Stu is probably the second most well known (if not the first most) of the cast. Fans of Helms know him well from “the Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and also his current gig as Andy Bernard the rageaholic foil to Dwight Schrute on television’s “The Office” with Steve Carrel. Stu is the dentist with a conscience, and seemingly the only logical thinker of the bunch. He loses his tooth during the bachelor party and does not know how when he wakes up the next day.

Justin Bartha plays Doug, who essentially is the main character of the movie but much like Christian Bale in “The New World” we only see Bartha for a total of twenty minutes throughout the film’s one and a half-hour run time. Doug is the man they’re doing it all for, the bachelor. His future father-in-law has let him barrow the prized antique Mercedes convertible and sets him off on his trip to Vegas letting him know, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” (Can you guess what happens to the car yet?) Now Bartha has had two crucial roles in his entire career- both of them coming in the role of Riley in Disney’s two “National Treasure” installments. In the second of the two, he’s the movie’s only saving grace. (Nic Cage’s career can you hear me??)

Then there’s Zach Galifianakis. Here’s a guy I saw live when he was at his peak of popularity at my Alma mater- the University of Rhode Island. He had his own talk show. People were still talking about his role in the cult-hit “Out Cold”. That was in 2003. Interestingly enough, that’s the same year that “Old School” was released so both Phillips and Galifianakis, who plays the semi-deranged Alan in “The Hangover”, had a lot riding on this film to take them out of an almost decade long dry spell in Hollywood.

The girl is played by Heather Graham another actor with nothing to lose since she hadn’t been a true lead female character in a good (notice the key-word “good”) movie since she played Felicity Shagwell in 1999s “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.”  Graham’s been bouncing around from poor film to poor film since then as well as having a decent cameo part on the television series “Scrubs” featuring Zach Braff.

And again, for a movie that went into theatres having virtually nothing to lose, they all (director included) pull it off. They foursome has one more weekend of bachelorhood in front of them and they’re looking to make the most of it. They check into “Caesar’s Palace” and rent one of the most expensive suites, then they go up onto the roof share a shot of Jagermeister and it all goes down hill from there.

 Waking up the next morning, Stu (Helms) is sleeping on his stomach in the middle of the room, in a small pool of his own blood. Phil (Cooper) is on a mattress in the middle of a hallway in the suite, (#2452, which added together equals 13---very unlucky in Vegas. Thank you for that fact IMDB,) and Alan has been having his rest behind the wet bar.

Alan rises first, goes to the bathroom- only to find a giant tiger waiting for him sitting right next to the bathtub. Its Alan’s screaming that raises Stu and Phil. They try to figure out what to do about the tiger and also wake up the groom to-be. Only, a funny thing, the groom is gone!

 What happens next is a rousing adventure involving not only the mystery of what happened to them the night before, but also the reason why they can’t remember. The film features many familiar “Vegas movie” clichés including silly marriages, strippers, gambling debts, tough thugs looking for money and of course- Wayne Newton.  Mike Tyson has his funniest cameo appearance since being the larger than life final boss in Nintendo’s “Punch Out” video game in 1987.

Yes there’s tigers on the loose, a mattress on the roof, a beat-up Mercedes that dad’ll kill them for, a nude Asian man in their trunk, a missing $80,000 and corrupt Vegas cops who think it’s funny to unwillingly tase people. Through it all they’ve got to find out what happened to them, and they especially need to find the missing groom! “The Hangover” never takes itself seriously and is just plain funny. It certainly earns its “R” rating (see: the closing credits) with its crude humor and nudity. It’s also a movie that’s hits many clichés but still remains original all its own. Think: “The 40 Year Old Virgin” meets “Wedding Crashers” and “Swingers” along with the crude humor of “Step Brothers”. If you liked any of those films, you’re sure to think you spent your money wisely on a ticket to “The Hangover” And yes, the sequel is already in the works.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button re-teams actor Brad Pitt with director David Fincher. The duo had previously worked together on such films as Fight Club and Seven. If their previous work is any indication as to how the pair have worked together, then going into “Curious Case…” expectations were certainly high.

            From the opening sequence in a Louisiana hospital room, the gritty darkness incorporated into the scene screams of vintage Fincher. There’s an old woman lying on her deathbed, her daughter staying by her mother’s side until the very end. The old woman has a story to share, a black and white flashback that tells the tale of a blind clock maker who lost his son in World War 1. The clock maker creates a clock the runs backwards and has it hung in a busy train station, the significance is that perhaps if time moves backwards, those that had lost something or someone would be able to rewind time themselves, and recover what they had lost.

            Thus, the movie begins. It turns out that the story the old woman has told to her daughter is significant because the woman carries with her a diary belonging to one named “Benjamin Button”. Benjamin was a different sort of person in that he spent his entire life, aging backwards. The diary is his life’s work, recounted by Button himself, and done so prior to becoming an adolescent and forgetting everything that had happened. The film’s plot is told through this diary, with narration by actor Pitt playing the lead role of Benjamin Button. It is a story based upon the short one of the same name written by famous author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

            Cate Blanchett, like director Fincher, re-teams with Pitt and she plays Benjamin’s love interest “Daisy”. Blanchett and Pitt last worked together in the film, Babel playing a husband and wife pair. Benjamin and Daisy hit it off right from the start, which is odd because when they first meet, Daisy is very young. As a viewer, we know that Benjamin Button is only eight years old but says so himself that, he “looks a lot older”. Daisy seems to see past his age and they become instant friends. As Benjamin ages and gets younger and younger he continues to seek out his one true love no matter where she is on the globe. Blanchett is, with her curvy dark eyes and creamy white skin tone, once again superb in her part. She continues with this role, to be one of the better actresses working in Hollywood today.

            Other cast members of note include, Tilda Swinton, who since playing the White Witch in the “Chronicles of Narnia,” seems to only be able to play bored housewives looking to commit adultery. She played the same part in the Cohen Brothers recent film, Burn After Reading while going after George Clooney. And she finds love in the arms of Brad Pitt in “Button” playing bored wife, Elizabeth Abbott, whom Benjamin believes to be his first real love. (Apparently not realizing the feelings he had for Daisy all along). She seems to have lost all sense of meaning in her life once she was unable to be the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Jared Harris of Mr. Deeds plays Captain Mike, seemingly the most masculine male influence in all of Benjamin Button’s life. It’s everything that Captain Mike is not, that Benjamin seems to love and respect him for.

            The story is captivating. Here is truly a film that keeps you watching for three hours, without having much action to show for it. The acting is great, and Brad Pitt should get a nod for a nomination in the“Best Actor” category during awards season this year. If Pitt does get nominated, than he and wife Angelina Jolie (Changeling) may both be up for a trophy. Those who should win some awards is who ever did the special effects for this film- the make up and aging done to the characters is absolutely flawless. Second to none! 

One of, if not the best, film of 2008!

Does "Valkyrie" Cruise Along?

            Tom Cruise is on the move to resurrect his career. Funny, that the crowned King of Scientology needs to rise from the dead like a certain Christian deity that he has chosen to rebuke. The move for a career shake up should be obvious. First he dabbled in comedy by portraying an over-worked and over-weight movie producer in Ben Stiller’s summer comedy “Tropic Thunder”. For the first time in his career Tom asked us to laugh with him. The only time he’d ever asked us as fans to do that was when he played Austin Powers in the in-movie movie preview they showed during Austin Powers 3.

            Now, in “Valkyrie” Tom Cruise shifts us back to his dramatic side. His turn as real-life historical figure Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is once again against the grain of Cruise’s past normalcy.  Cruise plays the part well enough, however the movie falls into a great many pit falls.

            First and most importantly, “Valkyrie” is supposed to take place in Adolf Hitler’s World War 2 Germany. Why, director Bryan Singer (“X-Men” and “Superman Returns”) decided to cast not only Cruise, but also a bevy of thick accented and recognizable Brits is beyond any all comprehension. In fact the only instance in the entire film when any actors (Including David Bamber as Hitler himself) even speak a hint of German- in the very opening of the movie, where Claus von Stauffenberg is writing an entry into his journal.  Normally, we go to films to escape reality- and therefore the fact that this movie isn’t exactly accurate shouldn’t bother you. However, this is a true story. Wouldn’t you think the director and those involved would want to stay as true to the source as possible?

            As stated, almost every actor besides Cruise will make you do a double take, and spend at least thirty seconds trying to decide what other movies you’ve seen them in. There’s Bill Nighy (“Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Underworld”), there is Kenneth Branagh (“Harry Potter”), Tom Wilkinson (“The Patriot”, “Batman Begins” and “Michael Clayton”), Terence Stamp (“Star Wars”), Kevin McNally (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) and even Tom Hollander (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) just to name a few. There are others!

It is the belief of this critic that “Valkyrie” would have been better portrayed as an indie-film using actual German actors speaking in German, with subtitles used at the bottom of the screen. The actors in this movie didn’t even look like they were German. I saw a better Hitler portrayed in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”.

            The other pit fall the film has is that any movie that is historically accurate means that the audience, unless not educated in the event, already knows how it’s going to end. “Valkyrie” is a movie about one of the many assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler’s life. If you’ve been to school, or at least never have lived under a rock- than you know going into it, that Hitler was never assassinated. If you do that math- than all you really need to do is sit through the first three quarters of the film and then imagine the rest.

            All of that being said, there are some suspenseful scenes throughout the film, which for a film labeled as a suspense-drama, is a good thing. Also for me, admittedly though I knew the eventual outcome I was not fully aware of everything in between so the film did get a bit befuddling at times when they were throwing out names of new characters, or group planning together. It was a nice when they explained everything by going step by step through their master plan.

            “Valkryie” is a film that doesn’t have to be seen in theatres for a $10 price tag plus popcorn. It’s not the movie that is going resurrect Tom Cruise’s career. You’re not going to leave the theatre a changed person. You’re not going to ever have to see it again and again. You’re never going to need to own it in your personal collection and you might not even recommend it to friends. But if you’re a history buff, a war movie buff, or even if you’ve seen everything else and want to go catch another- “Valkryie” will entertain you. I supposed, in the end, that’s all you can really ask for from a film.