The Hangover

Rating: * * * *

The Verdict:

One night with this lot in Vegas would be plenty enough.

Fans of director Todd Phillips'

Old School

and

Road Trip

are going to love this similarly themed comedy about a bachelor party in Las Vegas that goes horrible wrong.

The censor's rating pretty much covers it - there is plenty to be offended by in

The Hangover.

Filled with laddish, tasteless humour, juvenile behaviour, consistent use of the f-word, random and unnecessary violence and nudity, this hangover might be painful but it's also at times hilariously funny.

Pretty much every Las Vegas bachelor party cliche is covered here (gambling, strippers, getting wasted, arrested and married), with a few new ideas of things not to do when in Vegas thrown in. What saves this comedy from being predictable though is the flashback "what-happened-last-night" structure of the story.

This is more

Dude, Where's My Car?

than

Memento

, as Phil (Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Stu (Ed Helms) wake up the morning after their best friend Doug's (Justin Bartha) bachelor party to find their Caesar's Palace suite trashed, a tiger and a chicken roaming around, Doug missing and a baby in the cupboard.

Aware they have failed in their groomsmen duties and lost the groom, they frantically start trying to piece together what happen the night before. Only problem is that not one of them has any recollection of what happened. As they race around Vegas piecing together how the night unfolded, they discover it was wilder and more complicated than they could have imagined.

Zach Galifianakis' Alan steals the show due to the uniqueness of his character. The other three guys are pretty standard - Phil's the smarmy stud, Stu's the nerd, Doug's the nice guy. Alan though is in a world all of his own; inappropriate, slightly unbalanced and socially inept; he's a liability that adds extra shock value.

The female characters in this film are either strippers or nags, but before you can really take offence to these nasty stereotypes it's worth noting that

The Hangover

isn't a popularity contest. Even the boys take most of the film to warm to, and screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore aren't averse to making racist and homophobic slurs as well. No one gets off lightly.

Whatever you do don't dash off before the credits roll, as the photos they flash up of what really happened to the boys that night are priceless - this is where you'll get your 15 bucks worth of laughs.

Francesca Rudkin

Cast

: Heather Graham, Bradley Cooper

Director

: Todd Phillips

Running time

: 100 mins

Rating

: R16 (offensive language, violence & other content that may offend)