The Hangover Part III

Comedies are a vast way to entertain one's self, especially when we are going through stressful and difficult times in our lives. I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy them as much as I do--as long as they have some quality about them. Within the past ten years or so, there have been few films that I would consider as fun films to be able to escape into, and yet have a certain amount of quality to them, however, "The Hangover Part III" doesn't fit that bill.

In the aftermath of the death of Alan's father, Sid (Jeffrey Tambor), the wolfpack decide to take ALan (Zach Galifianakis) to get treated for his mental illness. But things start to go wrong on the way to the hospital as Phil, Stu, Alan, and Doug (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Galifianakis, and Justin Bartha) respectively are assaulted by a man named Marshall (John Goodman) and his henchmen. Marshall gives them a proposition since they know Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong). Apparently Chow stole Marshall's gold bars and hid them. Since the wolfpack knows Chow, they are to find him and bring him back to Marshall or they will kill Doug whom they are holding hostage. Pretty simple right? Or is it?

Others to round out the cast are Melissa McCarthy as Cassie, Heather Graham as Jade, Mike Epps as Black Doug, and Sasha Barrese as Tracy.

This was directed by one of the more modern styled artists of comedy today, Todd Phillips ("Hated: GG Allin & the Murder Junkies" (Documentary) '93, "Frat House" (Documentary) '98, "Road Trip" 2000, "Bittersweet Motel" (Documentary) 2000, "Old School" '03, "Starsky & Hutch" '04, "School for Scoundrels" '06, "The More Things Change..." (TV movie) '08, "The Hangover" '09, "Due Date" '10, "The Hangover Part II" '11). This was certainly directed with that contemporary style of today's comedies--love 'em or leave 'em. It was written by Todd Phillips and Craig Mazin based on characters created by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. This is where the breakdown lies. The humor in this was, on the most part, forced and humorless. There were some funny lines and sight gags, but at the end of the day, it suffered. The extreme differences of the characters: Jeong and Galifianakis' over-the-top performances, and Cooper, Helms, and Bartha's straight arrow type characters made this comedy palatable, but the plot was certainly not original, but was contrived.

This is supposed to be the finale of this franchise, however it really leaves it opened-ended. I have to believe that even though this helped Cooper, career wise, he has been attached to too many quality films that have given him the chance to show us what he's actually made of, i.e. "The Words", and "Silver Linings Playbook" since that first Hangover film. I think he would rather just keep moving down that quality film road. Suffice it to say, you could easily wait for the DVD on this one unless you would rather see these guys being dumb up close and personal.

Out of 4 Stars: 2                         Rated: R                           100mins.