First of all, what you need to know about The Hangover (2009) is that this movie is awesome. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should be ashamed of yourself… It’s just about 100 minutes of one laugh after another. However, never think that just because the first movie was great, you should also see the rest of the series, because you really shouldn’t. For example, The Hangover 2 (2011) brings absolutely nothing new to the table and you will feel like you are seeing the same movie all over again. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s talk about the movie itself.
It’s about a group of friends (and Zach Galifianakis’ character) who go to Las Vegas for an “end of an era” bachelor party. While there, the guys black out, lose the groom to-be and spend most of the movie trying to figure out just what in heaven’s name happened to them. And when a set of misadventures – involve a missing friend, a baby that nobody knows who it belongs to, a tiger of similar unclear background and Mike Tyson – you know you are in for something very special. But what I liked most about the movie is the “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” attitude, coupled with the concept that just about anything can happen there.
Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) are extremely funny in their own ways and their chemistry onscreen can even make you think that some of this stuff could actually happen to a crazy group of friends. As a man who enjoys gambling in Vegas, the thing I loved the most was the way the movie depicts the city. They show that it’s a place where a grown man can have more fun in one night than he could have in a lifetime in any other part of the world.
The guys stay at Caesar’s Palace, one of the most luxurious casino and hotel complexes in Las Vegas. However, actual gambling doesn’t really rise to prominence in the plot until the later stages of the movie, when the guys need to do it in order to recover some gangster money they apparently misplaced. They take advantage of Alan’s card counting skills to win the money at a blackjack table. If you ever plan on doing the same thing, you should be aware that the security in Las Vegas is as tight as you’ll ever going to encounter and you really don’t want to get caught counting cards there.
The movie does a great job of showcasing all of the crazy stuff you can do while staying at a casino in Vegas. It also shows how just about everything there is about size, or rather largeness. You get big casinos, with hundreds of slots and gaming tables, you get thousands of awesome shows every week and you are always surrounded by other people looking for fun. I think that everyone should try a weekend in Vegas at least once in their lives. Just make sure you don’t get roofied like the guys in the movie.