The Hang­over Part II

Hol­ly­wood loves to cel­e­brate suc­cess, and few films were more suc­cess­ful than 2009’s The Hang­over. Todd Phillips’ word-of-mouth mon­ster is now habit­u­al­ly referred to (by its mar­ket­ing team, at least) as ​‘the high­est gross­ing R‑rated com­e­dy of all time’. Not the ​‘best’, mind you. Or the ​‘fun­ni­est’. But the most lucrative.

So the stakes couldn’t be much clear­er for this sequel. Like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hang­over fran­chise has quick­ly mor­phed from rebel-on-the-block to stu­dio cor­ner­stone. Unlike Pirates, how­ev­er, The Hang­over Part II man­ages to make that tran­si­tion with dig­ni­ty intact – not that dig­ni­ty was ever a big theme in the first place. This sequel may be big­ger, dumb­er and loud­er than the orig­i­nal – no sur­pris­es there – but the big shock is that it’s fun­nier, too.

There’s a weird kind of com­ic alche­my hap­pen­ing on screen as we fol­low The Wolf­pack – Phil (Bradley Coop­er), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Gal­i­fi­anakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) – to Thai­land, where Stu is mar­ry­ing into a wealthy Thai fam­i­ly, much to the dis­plea­sure of its fear­some patri­arch. The cat­a­lyst for chaos this time around is a qui­et drink on the beach with Stu’s future broth­er-in-law Ted­dy (Mason Lee), which turns, once again, into a hun­gover morn­ing after an epic – and for­got­ten – night before.

Almost every beat from the first film is reprised. Stu’s miss­ing tooth is now a tat­too. Mike Tyson’s tiger is a drug-deal­ing mon­key. An ancient wheel­chair-bound monk replaces the baby. And this time it’s Ted­dy who’s lost, with a new city – Bangkok – to explore.

Every­thing about the set-up speaks to the worst val­ues of the Hol­ly­wood sys­tem – con­ser­vatism, fear, con­temp­tu­ous dis­trust of the audi­ence and pover­ty of imag­i­na­tion. The very essence of char­ac­ter – devel­op­ment, pro­gres­sion, growth, change – is here aban­doned for sta­sis and recidi­vism. The Hang­over Part II is a Sisyphean night­mare, with The Wolf­pack doomed to repeat past behav­iours forever.

Only, buried some­where with­in this ugly truth, is the root of the film’s suc­cess. Because although Phillips isn’t brave enough to let his char­ac­ters branch out, he’s smart enough to recog­nise it, and build this self-aware­ness into the script. ​“We did it again,” says Phil rue­ful­ly, as they stum­ble through the wreck­age of the pre­vi­ous night. With this hon­esty (or is it shame­less­ness?) comes con­fi­dence, with con­fi­dence comes charm, and with that charm comes a breezy abil­i­ty to car­ry the audi­ence through the film on a wave of esca­lat­ing absur­di­ty and irre­sistible laughs.

Yes, The Hang­over Part II is boor­ish, rude and cul­tur­al­ly dis­in­ter­est­ed (hey, it’s an Amer­i­can abroad), but it’s also fuck­ing hilar­i­ous. There’s no point dis­cussing the hows or whys of its many com­ic set-pieces – that would only spoil them – but suf­fice to say that Coop­er, Helms, Gal­i­fi­anakis and Phillips know exact­ly who these char­ac­ters are and pre­cise­ly what to do with them. With bril­liant sup­port from a scene-steal­ing Ken Cheong repris­ing his role as Mr Chow – now very much in his ele­ment – and a few exot­ic touch­es added to the mix (a flash­back scene to the night before with the cast reimag­ined as kids is inspired) The Hang­over Part II is a riot.

There are, of course, some heavy-hand­ed touch­es that don’t quite work; Gal­i­fi­anakis is an acquired taste; and the very final scene may strike some view­ers as self-ref­er­en­tial to a fault (in fact, cyn­ics might find it trag­ic, dis­taste­ful and humil­i­at­ing), but The Hang­over Part II acquits itself with tru­ly sur­pris­ing vivac­i­ty to an all-but-impos­si­ble task. Whether it will become the high­est-gross­ing R‑rated com­e­dy of all time is yet to be seen. But we might ten­ta­tive­ly start call­ing it one of the best.