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The Hangover

Character

- Though he had some good parts throughout the movie, it was hard to truly like the Zach Galifianakis character when he was established as a pedophile of sorts.

- I have no issue with a light comedy skimming the surface of character. Yet The Hangover did something rarely seen in even the most stupid and two-dimensional stories: Bradley Cooper’s character said something (not shown!) early on about his trouble on the homefront. Then nothing else about this hole in his life till the end when he embraced his wife! That was everything for this character’s arc…no reflection, no moment of learning anything…nothing. A straight to Z. Ouch.

Casting

The three main guys- Zach, Bradley and Ed Helms- had no chemistry. I never felt like Bradley and Ed were actually friends.

———

It’s a year later and I just saw it again on cable…and I liked it more than I did after seeing it in the theater. Honestly, there were just a few chuckles throughout the movie in the half-packed theater. I still disagree with the joke about Zach not allowed near a school or Chuck E Cheeses and the part about Bradley’s arc, but the movie was consistently better than I remembered.

Here’s what else I noticed:

Little things

- The movie lacked a moment where Ed and Bradley acknowledged Zach as a friend, as one of the gang. He’s the one who saved the day by winning at Blackjack and it felt obvious that such a moment was due.

- The flick lacked a reason why Ed and the stripper liked each other. It didn’t have to be anything deep considering this was a light movie, but something.

- After all the jokes from Bradley about Ed not being a “doctor” since he’s just a dentist, it would have been nice for Bradley to ask Ed’s help when he got clawed by the tiger.

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