Movie Review The Hangover

The Hangover (2009) 

Directed by Todd Phillips

Written by Jon Lucas, Scott Moore 

Starring Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha 

Release Date June 5th, 2009 

Published June 5th, 2009 

The glitz and glamour of Las Vegas has long been a tempting target for the movies. But, rarely has the ever so carefully un-wholesome Vegas mantra "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" been better explored than in the brilliant new comedy The Hangover. Directed by Old School's Todd Phillips, The Hangover is male arrested development and Vegas debauchery at its finest.

Four pals travel to Sin city with plans to drink and gamble and be back home with a day to spare before one of them, Doug (Justin Bartha) gets married. Those plans go out the window fast as a night of PG-13 debauchery takes an X-rated turn and the groom ends up missing.

The story picks up the day after the debauchery when Doug's pals Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Andy (Zach Galifianakis) awaken in their high roller suite to find a purloined tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet and one missing groom. They remember nothing of the night before and have to piece the night together from available evidence.

A medical bracelet tells them they took a trip to the hospital. A valet claim card delivers the police cruiser they evidently stole and a photo tells them that Stu married to a complete stranger. The trip to the hospital, the cop shop and the chapel lead to more bizarre revelations as we follow on a debaucherously amateur detective story.

The story is inventive in the way it continues to spin the boys' behavior out into new and ever more outrageous action but what really sets The Hangover apart are the three actors at its center. Bradley Cooper plays the handsome ladies man as a wannabe bachelor bitter about having given up his freedom for marriage. He is the traditional lead in a comedy of this sort but Cooper gives the role an edge by blending into the ensemble and truly being one of the boys.

The Office co-star Helms is the nebbish nerd with a harridan girlfriend (Rachel Harris) whose so henpecked he has to say he's in wine country instead of Vegas and has some real tap dancing to do when the trip is extended by another day. Helms gets the privilege of playing opposite the radiant Heather Graham as the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold who may be the key to him leaving his old life behind.

And then there is Zach Galifianakis. The enigmatic comic, known for making the great Steven Wright look cheery in comparison when on the stand up stage, is the breakout star of summer 2009.

Roger Ebert fairly compares Galifianakis to John Belushi in Animal House. It's that iconic. Zach's Andy is a wealth of comic non-sequiturs and manages to make a character generally played as a creep into a sweetheart of a man-child whose naïve observations and physical carriage are parts of the funniest performance of the summer.

The Hangover is arguably the funniest movie of 2009. Destined to break out the pack thanks to its absurd amount of laughs and slightly tweaked take on material that seems more familiar than it really is. It's essentially a road picture filled with human caricatures, recognizable types who should work through a mechanical plot to a rote end. Not the case here where the mechanics are twisted and turned in such surprising and hilarious ways.

This is one time where you will welcome a Hangover.

Movie Review: Due Date

Due Date (2010) 

Directed by Todd Phillips

Written by Adam Sztykiel, Todd Phillips

Starring Robert Downey Jr, Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan, Juliette Lewis, Jamie Foxx

Release Date November 5th, 2010

Published November 4th, 2010

The comparison between “Due Date” and the 80's classic “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is inescapable. Then again, as conventional as “Due Date” is, it can be compared to dozens of road trip comedies released in the decade and a half since Steve Martin and John Candy seemed to define the road trip aesthete.

Conventional may sound like a negative but it's just another way of saying that the humor of “Due Date” is familiar; you feel as if you have heard these jokes and witnessed these gags before. That said, despite the conventional approach of “Due Date” it is funny because stars Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis are funny. If you don't love these two actors and their opposing comic styles going in, don't bother seeing “Due Date.”

Peter Highman has a simple task ahead of him; board a plane for Los Angeles and three days later witness the birth of his first child as his wife Sarah's labor is induced. It all seems so simple until Peter meets Ethan (Zach Galifianakis). Ethan is a whirlwind of trouble; he and Peter meet when Ethan's ride to the airport nearly kills Peter as he is exiting his town car. The ensuing chaos causes Peter and Ethan to mix up luggage and Peter nearly misses the plane while carrying Ethan's marijuana pipe. Allowed onto the plane, Peter finds himself seated in front of Ethan and like clockwork Ethan sets about getting them thrown off the plane.

Since Peter's bags are on the plane and he had tucked his wallet in the seatback in front of him he has no money and no means to rent a car. He can't catch another plane because Ethan's rant about bombs and terrorists has landed them both on the no fly list. Now, with only his Blackberry on hand, Peter is stranded until Ethan comes along offering a ride.

Like Peter, Ethan is heading to Los Angeles. He is joined by his dog and the ashes of his late father packed in a coffee can. If you've seen the trailer and commercials then you have witnessed much of the wackiness that ensues during this road trip including crashes, arrests, injuries and the accidental ingestion of dad's ashes as coffee.

Thankfully, “Due Date” is a little more than the sum of its gags. What makes “Due Date” work, even as it contains few surprises and an overly familiar plot, is that Rober Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis are such a terrifically offbeat screen pairing. Downey and Galifianakis seem to have zero chemistry and that is exactly what works for this duo. 

Downey is brilliant in subverting expectations with defensive hostility; his Peter stubbornly refuses to accept that he is a character in a road trip comedy, one who because of social convention must accept pain, humiliation and delay simply out of kindness, and that stubbornness comes out in his righteously angry outbursts aimed at Ethan and even at his dog and his late father's ashes. 

Galifianakis too has a way of subverting what is expected of him. Employing a joyous mix of childishness and naiveté his Ethan is a man child of rather epic proportions. Not merely some Adam Sandler type who clings to his illusion of youth through fart jokes and other juvenile behavior, Ethan is truly an overgrown child with both the immaturity and vulnerability one would forgive in a pre-teen but comes off as just nuts in a big hairy adult. 

Ethan is a wonderful dichotomy. His behavior would be excused were he 12 years old but as a bear of a nearly 40 year old man his behavior is unpredictable, irritating and strangely charming. Zach Galifianakis is the rare comic actor who can play this dichotomy without it becoming an overbearing act. 

Director Todd Phillips had Galifianakis bring that same disquieting vulnerability to “The Hangover” and it gets the same big laughs this time. Yes, one must begin to wonder whether Zach can play a different comic note, for the record I believe he can, he did rather brilliantly in “It's Kind of a Funny Story,” for now this same comic note is still funny. Future roles will show how well Galifianakis plays other beats or somehow evolves this persona. 

Sure, you've seen this all before but thanks to Downey and Galifianakis, “Due Date” is still funny. The same jokes you've seen a few times in a few other road trip movies are funny because Downey and Galifianakis are telling them in a slightly off-key manner, one that works just for them. 

You have to be a fan of the comic styles of Downey and Galifianakis to like “Due Date.” You have to enjoy Downey's wry sarcasm ala “Iron Man” or “Sherlock Holmes” and you have to have enjoyed Galifianakis's man-child act from “The Hangover.” If not, “Due Date” will not work for you. I am fan of both actors and thus I really liked “Due Date.”

Movie Review: Up in the Air

Up in the Air (2009) 

Directed by Jason Reitman 

Written by Jason Reitman 

Starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Danny McBride 

Release Date December 4th, 2009 

Published December 3rd, 2009 

It's a horrifying idea but I am told it is real. Companies actually do hire people to fire employees for them. It's bad enough losing your job but to have the people you have given your hard work and dedication to for however many years hand you off to someone else for the worst moment of your career is a disgusting thought. It's just the kind of cowardly and dehumanizing effect of modern capitalism that turns my stomach. 

George Clooney gives life to one of these workplace specters of career death in a snappy suit, a  and a pamphlet for a sickle. He's the villain of this story in many ways but by drilling down on this character, we don't find a villain but a lonely, sad result of what soulless capitalist pursuits can do to a human soul. George Clooney delivers the best performance of his career under the direction of Jason Reitman in Up in the Air. 

In “Up in the Air” George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man who takes pride in spending some 330 days of the year traveling. He has a semblance of a home, a tidy bachelor hovel in Omaha, near the corporate headquarters of the company he works for but rarely sees. It is Ryan's job to fly into cities across the country, visit some no name corporate outlet and do the boss's dirty work - firing people. He and the company have some cruel euphemism for firing but it's a firing and it's as ugly as you imagine. 

Ryan is very good at his job, occasionally he's actually soothing which, given the circumstance, is rather impressive. Ryan doesn't love his job, though when asked to he can romanticize and defend it. What he truly loves is the travel which allows him the comfort he's never found at home. In passing relations with fellow travelers and the faux kindness of the service industry professionals he encounters Ryan finds the kinds of relationship he's never achieved with just one person. Simple relationships unencumbered by emotion or instability.

Naturally, all of Ryan's notions are soon challenged. The first challenge is personal as, while on a layover in some airline lounge, he strikes up a conversation with Alex (Vera Farmiga) over her choice of Blackberry. The conversation soon turns to travel, rental cars, hotel upgrades and all of the things both truly cherish. He tells her he has a goal for airline miles but refuses to tell her what it is. That, for Ryan, is too personal.

The second challenge is professional and arrives in the form of Natalie (Anna Kendrick), an up-and-comer from the home office in Omaha who has a plan that will take Ryan off the road and strand him in Nebraska. She wants to fire people over a computer link up and the honchos, led by a less than convincing Jason Bateman, are ready to back the idea. In defending his way of doing things Ryan inadvertently ends up with Natalie as his protégé and traveling partner as he teaches her how to do his job.

Jason Reitman and  co-screenwriter Sheldon Turner tell a two track story in Up in the Air that coalesces into one spectacular series of scenes that includes gate-crashing a computer convention and an appearance by rapper Young MC. These scenes show Ryan and Alex falling in love while young Natalie unwittingly challenges each of their notions about who they are and why they are attracted to one another. This happens as she mourns the loss of the only relationship she has known in her own life. 

Of course, the scenes that will strike a chord with 2009 audiences are scenes featuring real people who went through the pain of being fired during the bailout crisis and recession of this late portion of the decade. Director Jason Reitman hired real people who had lost their jobs to take part in these scenes and the pain in their voices as they talk about the loss of their jobs is exceptionally powerful.

The firing sessions give the film weight and allow the romance to blossom around them in unexpected ways. Scenes with actors Zach Galifianakis and Reitman favorite J.K Simmons provide the visual link between the film world and the real world. Without Galifianakis and Simmons, among others, the transition between the real world of these awful firings to the film world's comedy and romance would be too jarring. It’s among many smart choices in this terrifically smart film.

In the end, “Up in the Air” is a film about connections - literal and figurative. The unique ways in which Ryan Bingham’s personal and professional lives connect are at the heart of a film that may not strive to define the last decade of American culture but in many ways does. From our current economic uncertainty, to our ever more casual sexuality, to our changing attitude about infidelities and modern obsessions with gadgetry, “Up in the Air” offers a modest comment on each and does so with style, wit, a little romance and never feels arrogant or overblown doing it.

Writer George Will flippantly called “Up in the Air” ‘Grapes of Wrath for the service industry.’ He’s not entirely wrong. Where that book and film defined a movement toward social justice coming out of the Great Depression, inside the romance of “Up in the Air” is an inkling of a cry for a just truce between greedy corporate titans and the humans they refer to as resources. It is only an inkling; this is still a modern, big star, Hollywood production, just one with a big beating heart for those who are struggling.

Movie Review G-Force

G-Force (2009) 

Directed by Hoyt H Yeatman Jr. 

Written by Cormac Wibberly, Marianne Wibberly 

Starring Zach Galifianakis, Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz, Tracy Morgan, Will Arnett, Steve Buscemi 

Release Date July 24th, 2009 

Published July 23rd, 2009 

The star of The Hangover, the foul mouthed lowbrow road comedy sensation of summer 2009, Zach Galifianakis, changes gears completely in the family adventure comedy, G-Force. Going from debauchery in Vegas to daring do alongside computer generated guinea pigs, Galifianakis may have one of the most successful and schizophrenic summer movie seasons of any actor ever.

In G-Force Zach Galifianakis plays Ben, the head scientist in a secret government lab that trains animals as spies. Ben started by training cockroaches to carry bugging devices (HA!). His greatest breakthrough however is inventing a way for guinea pigs to speak and then perform tasks. Sending them into the field for the first time, Ben has G-Force, as they come to be called, infiltrate the home of a wealthy industrialist (Bill Nighy) with alleged ambitions for taking over the world. G-Force is made up of Darwin (Sam Rockwell), Blaster (Tracy Morgan), Juarez (Penelope Cruz) and Speckles (Nicolas Cage). Speckles is a mole and a computer expert.

G-Force unfortunately fails their first mission. The evidence they thought they found was corrupted. This leads to the team being taken away from Ben and the whole operation getting shutdown by Agent Killian (Will Arnett). G-Force ends up in a pet shop but eventually their training kicks in and they are soon back on the case, even as their own government chases them down. Will they stop the tycoon from taking over the world? Do you care?

OK. You likely don't care and neither, really, will the target audience of children. What matters in G-Force are the little pleasures like a touch of the lowbrow humor, a waste of time car chase involving giant SUVs and tiny plastic hamster balls, and the sight of star Zach Galifianakis so convincingly interacting with CGI rodents.

G-Force, as most kids movies these days, is in 3D and while it adds very little to the proceedings, G-Force at least can slightly justify the use with some big time, flying at the screen action set pieces. The 3D isn't as forced as a lot of the modern 3D films and because G-Force is not a colorful or visually dynamic movie the 3D doesn't harm the experience like it did with animated films like Coraline and Up.

Is G-Force a good movie? Eh, not really. But, by the lowered standards of the kiddie flick it's not bad. Zach Galifianakis makes the most of his limited screen time and he's become a very welcome presence in movies. Bottom line is, as 3D kiddie fare goes, I can recommend G-Force even if I have already begun to forget it.