“The Hangover” is a comedy film that was released in 2009. It is rated R.
A nice young guy named Doug is getting married soon and his friends convince him to have his bachelor party in Las Vegas. They check into their suite at Caesar’s Palace and later sneak up onto the roof to have a drink to start the night. Stu and Phil are old friends and they are accompanied by Alan, the weird brother of Doug’s fiancee.
The next morning Stu, Phil, and Alan wake up to find that their room is trashed, there is a baby in the closet, and there is a tiger in the bathroom. To top it off, the groom to be is missing. Stu, the dentist, is missing a tooth, Phil is wearing a hospital bracelet, and the Mercedes that belongs to Alan’s father is missing. When the valet at the hotel brings their car, its a police car, not the Mercedes.
Tracing their steps back to the hospital they find that they came in the night previously and they all had traces of Ruphylin (roofies, the date rape drug) in their systems. The doctor tells them that before coming to the hospital they had been to a wedding. They find the chapel and find that Stu, who is engaged to his girlfriend back home, had married an escort that night and the baby they were carrying around was hers. They find the escort, Jade (Heather Graham), and give her back the baby. They then get arrested for stealing the police car. The two police officers are wary of others finding out about their car being stolen so they work out a deal with the three friends. They volunteer to be Tasered at an elementary school demonstration in return for not being charged with grand theft.
After they leave the school they go to pick up the Mercedes that was in an impound lot. When they leave they hear a noise and think that maybe Doug is in the trunk. They stop but instead of Doug they find a naked Asian man wielding a tire iron. He beats them badly and runs away. Afterward Alan admits that he had spiked their drinks on the roof the night before, but he thought it was Ecstasy, not roofies that he put in the drinks.
When they get back to their hotel room to regroup they find Mike Tyson who is looking for his missing tiger. After knocking Alan out, he demands that they return the tiger to his home. They drug the tiger with roofies and take him back to Mike Tyson’s house where he shows them the security tapes from the night before. When they leave they are attacked again by the same guys who attacked them at the wedding chapel. They turn out to be led by the Asian man that had escaped from their trunk, Leslie Chow. He tells them that they stole $80,000 from him the night before and demands it back. He claims that he has Doug and will exchange him for the money. The friends don’t have that kind of money but Alan turns out to be good at counting cards. With the help of Jade they manage to win enough money at blackjack to pay Doug’s ransom. They meet Leslie Chow in the desert and make the exchange only to find out that he had the wrong Doug. Instead of their friend they received the drug dealer named Doug who had sold Alan roofies instead of Ecstasy the night before.
On the way back to Vegas Phil stops and calls Tracey, Doug’s girlfriend. They wedding is set for that day and they were already going to be late. Right before he can tell her the story, Stu realizes where Doug must be. He gets Phil off of the phone and they race back to the hotel. Stu had remembered that they had pranked Doug in the past and they might have done so again last night. Also, the fact that there was a mattress stuck on a statue meant the it may have been a signal from Doug. Apparently the hotels in Vegas have windows that don’t open, likely to prevent suicide attempts by people who have lost everything. He deduces that they left Doug on the roof on his mattress and that Doug had thrown it over the roof in an attempt to get someones attention. When they get up to the roof they find Doug with a bad sunburn and a stack of chips from the casino Alan had indeed taken Chow’s money by mistake and left it with Doug.
Now very late for the wedding they race back home in the car. Along the way they are met on the highway by the tuxedo company and they receive their wedding clothes and put them on while driving at high speed. Once they get home the wedding proceeds. Phil meets his wife and kid, and Stu breaks up with his mean and cold fiancee. He had spoken with Jade earlier and was willing to see if they might be able to have a relationship. They find Stu’s digital camera in the car and they agree to look at the photos of that night once and then delete them. The movie ends as they go through the photos, some of which are quite embarrassing.
My Recommendation
I absolutely love this movie. There is some strong language and sexual content but its mostly a buddy comedy with a number of twists and turns thrown in. While my wife was initially hesitant to go see it, she agreed after a friend recommended it. She loved it also, and we’ve watched it again on DVD after it came out.
