The Hangover: Grade B

B
The Hangover (2009)
Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Heather Graham, Rachel Harris; Director Todd Phillips.

Four guys go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party, rent a swank suite and drink too much. In the morning, the suite is in ruins, there is a Bengal tiger in the bathroom, a chicken in the living room, a baby in the closet, and only three of them left. The bridegroom is missing. None of the survivors can remember what happened the night before, but they have a few clues, such as, one of the guys is wearing a hospital wristband, and another is missing a front tooth. They set about trying to solve the mystery and finding their missing friend. As they make inquiries, even more bizarre clues and incidents turn up. In the end, everything is all right, more or less.

It is a sophomoric tale with silly gags, plenty of vomiting and car crashes, but the writing is very funny, the acting excellent, and the directing perfect. So stupid or not, it is a LOL comedy that rises far above the level of its genre. Acting in several supporting roles was quite outstanding, especially by Ken Jeong and Rachel Harris as the shrew girlfriend. Heather Graham didn’t do anything special. Popular music was mostly foreign to me, but interesting and appropriate.

The only serious error is the ending, in which the re-united foursome find a camera with pictures of the adventure, and they agree to look at the pictures once only. It should have ended there. But the filmmakers could not resist actually showing the photos while the credits rolled and the pictures are totally out of keeping with the spirit of the movie, showing gratuitous nudity and explicit sex. That had to be some jerk producer’s decision because the director had struck just the right notes up to that point. For a nonsense romp, this is way better than expected.

21: Grade C

C
21 (2008)
Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Lawrence Fishburne. Director Robert Luketic.

Kevin Spacey is a physics professor at MIT who puts together a team of students to learn a simple card-counting system to beat the Las Vegas casinos. In blackjack, every card played is shown so you can count how many aces, face cards and 10’s have been played. Since you know how many of those are in a deck, you adjust your betting according to how many are left, beating the house odds.

On the team, Sturgess develops a passionless relationship with Bosworth. Fishburne is the casino security manager who spots the scam after it becomes apparent that the casino is losing money. There is no explanation why the team stupidly plays the same casino night after night, week after week. Nor can we understand why Sturgess doesn’t open some bank accounts instead of stashing wads of cash over a ceiling tile in his dorm room. For a bunch of smarty-pantses, the team is weak on strategic thinking.

Despite the intellectually engaging story, the movie is very slow. “Filler” scenes of cityscapes, neon lights, people boarding airplanes, driving, walking, sleeping, eating, shopping, burn up most of the screen time. The characters are not well developed or emotionally engaged. Finally, 90 dead minutes into the movie, new writers must have been brought in, a genuine plot develops and it’s pretty good, although the ending, which suddenly turns the entire story into a flashback, is lame. Spacey is always enjoyable to watch, as is Fishburne, but the rest of the cast was unremarkable.

Ocean's Thirteen: Grade D

D
Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)
George Cloony, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliot Gould, Bernie Mac, Al Pacino, Don Cheadle, Casey Affleck, Carl Reiner, Ellen Barkin, Andy Garcia, Larry Paine. Director Steven Soderbergh.

In this sequel, the gang is out to destroy Pacino’s Las Vegas casino/hotel because he tried to kill their buddy Elliot Gould. The plan is as silly as the script. They will rig the slots, tables, and wheel to break the bank of the casino, but the goal is revenge, so they will also assure that the hotel gets a bad review and that Pacino’s diamond collection is stolen. That should really annoy him. Seems that it would have been easier just to kill Pacino, but then there would be no excuse for this elaborate Mission Impossible scenario. To insert the rigging, the boys need to circumvent the security computer. Cutting the power is out of the question because that was done in Ocean’s Twelve, so instead, they get a giant boring machine that tunnels through rock and shakes the hotel’s foundations to simulate an earthquake. Great plan. Sensible! The acting is negligible despite all the star power. Pacino and Barkin were especially disappointing because we know they are capable of much more. Extremely high production values, good photography, and good music keep you watching, but with no story and no acting, that’s not enough to make the movie succeed.