The Hangover: Part 2

It’s not as shit as lots of critics are saying it is. But it is mostly shit.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Right? That’s a solid rule of life, tried and tested and formed from extensive experience. We trust such wise old mottos for a reason. They must work.

Well they work to an extent. This sequel takes the rule to the extreme. It takes it much too far. As many have already said, Part 2 is pretty much a scene by scene remake of the original. If you’ve seen The Hangover this will be predictable. The jokes might initially force a smile, a smile of recollection, a hint of the laughter from your first viewing of Part 1. Then they will become torturously tiresome.

Most of the attempts at humour in the film left me absolutely cold. I watched, aware that this was meant to be funny, conscious of idiotic laughter elsewhere in the cinema, feeling completely uninterested. The times that you are tempted to the verge of a giggle feel as if they are due to an uncontrollable infectious reaction, a mindless physical spasm, spreading from a gaffawing buffoon or someone who hasn’t seen The Hangover. Or someone who laughs at the first syllable of country.

Actually on a few occassions, no more than three, I felt compelled to genuinely laugh. For whatever reason, be it my easily shocked innocence or taste for inappropriate jokes, I wanted to let myself chuckle. BUT so appalled was I by the lack of creativity, the sheer cheek of the filmmakers to release a sequel with EXACTLY the same format and plot, I forced myself to conceal my pleasure. Or limit it to the slightest “ha”. Quite apart from the fact I knew in my head it was awful, there were also some gags that strayed over my (usually rather wide) line of decency on issues from sexuality to race.

There are a handful of enjoyable things in Part 2 however. Chief among them is the wife-in-waiting, played by Jamie Chung. She is delightfully pretty and sexy, and not in the crude way you might expect from these films. Her character is not spectacuarly rounded, lifelike or convincing, but simply the stereotypically perfect girlfriend/partner/wife. She is gorgeous, intelligent, caring, understanding, perhaps even submissive. It’s briefly nice to indulge the impossible daydream of having such a devoted soul mate.

Bangkok is pretty much the perfect location for this film. But I’m not going to indulge it any further by picking out the positives. It is mostly irritating. When I saw Holy Rollers, I realised Justin Bartha could act and play interesting characters. Here he goes back to his career of missing out on crazy happenings, this time not on a roof but by a turquoise resort pool, fretting over five star breakfast. Seriously couldn’t they have shuffled the Wolf pack to include him this time? Just shake things up with a little change?

A handful of reviews have speculated that this sequel must surely be a piece of high concept art, mirroring the actual weary effects of a hangover. The first film was the wild night out and this is the comedown. These 102 minutes of my life aren’t refunded with such creative criticism though.

This has turned into a pointless rant. All I meant to say is that the critics are 90% right about The Hangover: Part 2. And the 10% they’re wrong about is not worth your time or money.

Unconventional style: Inglorious Basterds, Juno and The Ghost

(some spoilers)

The most stylish person in a room looks different to everyone else. Often the first step to style, the boldest move towards quality, is doing something different and distinctive. A lot of the time these risky moves will end in tears but some people just have the knack for it.

Three such people are directors Quentin Tarantino, Jason Reitman and Roman Polanski. Recently I’ve watched some of the best known, latest works of all of these men and it’s clear they’re endowed with the lucky gift of success when embracing the unconventional.

Firstly Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds is such a fascinating, intriguing picture. Events within the plot and elements of the execution bear Tarantino’s sensational touch – leading Nazis weren’t slaughtered in reality in a cinema in Paris – but that does not mean there aren’t serious elements to this film too. On the surface it’s a simplified, warped version of history, with a non-existent band of American Jews exacting revenge for the Holocaust, which wasn’t widely known about until the discovery of death camps at the end of the conflict. But at the very least it’s a sumptuous exercise in the best of filmmaking and with its faithful use of various languages, does say something factual rather than fictionalised about the misunderstandings and deceptions of war. It’s also, somehow, hilarious.

As the film’s star Brad Pitt says in one of the interviews on the Blu-Ray disc, this film plays out more like a novel. It’s broken into chapters, the first handful of which establish the characters and the rest bring them together for an explosive, visually stunning finale. Only a few of these characters are typical and expected for the wartime context; the French farmer in the marvellous opening scene for example. But the rest are Tarantino creations. They’re extremely vivid and engaging but also wild, sometimes implausible extremes, almost as if plucked from the pages of a striking graphic novel. Somehow the director/writer makes them wonderfully believable and then gives them bags of room to play in his chapters, which often consist of one, long and extended scene.

The opening scene establishes the marvellous character of the “Jew hunter” played by Christoph Waltz. There are some splendid, picturesque shots of the French countryside, followed by a wonderfully tense dialogue scene indoors. The interrogative German is sinister through his politeness, only to reveal the true nature of his visit. Other scenes in the film get similar space to breathe and come to life, in particular another edge of the seat, tense encounter in a tavern. This is the film’s longest scene and is incredibly realistic and satisfying as the spies, including the wonderful Michael Fassbender, attempt not to blow their cover. Language again plays an important role, and does so throughout, becoming almost another character. Often Inglorious Basterds feels more like a play, only for some explosive action to remind you that only a film could deliver such thrills, laughs and intrigue. Ultimately the spot-on dialogue, lengthy scenes, exploration of language and sensational characters and events, is not only stylish but says something worthwhile about the war.

All of these films say something worthwhile. Juno chips in with messages about taking people at face value and what really makes relationships work, as well as challenging views of young people. And The Ghost, whilst being primarily an impressive exercise in storytelling rather than a substantive study of politics, does have some underlying messages about identity and ethics.

If you had one word to describe Juno, chances are it would be “quirky”. Anywhere you look online you’ll find this label plastered to the film’s witty face. Personally it seems an unfair, limiting term for such an intelligent, funny, well-acted production. But I guess it is undoubtedly true. Juno isn’t your average teenager. She’s witty, quick and cynical. She wasn’t used by some sex mad male but got knocked up by banging the best friend who’s crazy about her out of boredom. She sets about helping a deserving couple, rather than unthinkingly obliterating the fledgling life inside her.

The couple she decides to “donate” her child to are almost as important to the story as Juno. Played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, they are the grown-up heart of the film, the crucial counterpoint to Juno’s usually happy exuberance. All the cast deal superbly with fast, funny dialogue, including Juno herself, Ellen Page, as well as her Dad and Step-Mom, J.K. Simmons and Alison Janney. And of course the love that suddenly blossoms at the end with Michael Cera, is wonderfully touching and encompassed by the duet which ends the film.

Of all these films it’s The Ghost with the most stylistic flourishes, perhaps ironic given the everyman Brit accent adopted by Ewan McGregor. There are no jaw-dropping stunts in this film; all the drama comes from the story and suffocating, tense locations. When crucial, potentially stunning events occur in the plot, Polanski deals with them with the utmost style. The film starts by simply showing an abandoned car to heighten the mystery surrounding the death of the previous Ghost Writer, rather than showing a spectacular murder scene. At the climax of the film McGregor’s character is abruptly hit by a car out of shot; we only see papers scatter and swirl in the traffic, littering the street.

Rich in detail, in The Ghost we learn surprisingly little about anything ever. Polanski somehow captures the Dan Brown like, page-turning twists of the novel and distils them on film, whilst also adding a layer of intelligence to the swerves of the plot. You are gripped, determined to keep watching for the big reveal. A reveal cunningly disguised throughout and then stylishly unveiled with an anticipation building close-up of a gradually passed note. The Ghost is immensely enjoyable and stylish; I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

So filmmakers do something different, unpredictable and restrained if you want to make it big and be lavished with praise.