The Best 'Hangover' I've Ever Had

Getting intoxicated to the point of blacking out is certainly a very poor choice; no good can come of your previous night's escapades and chances are your brain has wiped away most of your memory. To experience all the fun of a carefree night without the painful side effects, however, I'd like to strongly recommend a movie.

To say The Hangover, directed by Todd Phillips of Old School fame, is funny is simply an understatement — this movie is the comedy of the year. Opening with a phone call from a bloody, hungover Phil (played with a brilliant arrogance by Bradley Cooper) to his AWOL buddy's bride to be (in less than five hours), he admits a mistake has been made and we see the bachelor party in Vegas was not such a great idea. And immediately, I'm sucked in.

The movie features four friends traveling to Las Vegas for one last hurrah before one of them gets hitched, and the guys — Phil, Stu (Ed Helms of The Daily Show), Alan (Zach Galifianakis, a scene-stealer in his own right), and the groom Doug (Justin Bartha, the comic relief from National Treasure) go nuts.

I won't give away any spoilers, but I was laughing for the entire 100 minutes. Between Alan's childish man-crush on Phil and the guys commandeering a cop car while looking for their missing groom, I was reminded of another bro-movie that has remained one of my favorites since its premiere: Wedding Crashers.

What's more, the stars from the movie held a charity poker tournament at The Poker Room of Caesar's Palace in none other than Las Vegas the Friday before the movie opened. Besides promoting the film, the charity tournament raised money for the Vegas-neighboring Opportunity Village, which serves people with intellectual disabilities by providing them with vocational training, employment and social recreation services that make their lives more productive and interesting.

Hangover's comic style is superb, the writing is quick-witted and funny, and it's a movie people will be talking about and quoting for a while. So I highly recommend seeing this film, either with some friends or a date. I mean, it's that or Night at the Smithsonian 2. Is there really much of choice?

Photo courtesy of Jon Furniss/WireImag.