Sam Strange Remembers: THE HANGOVER

A while ago, I experienced one of my life’s most powerful binges in Las Vegas with my best party buds Eli Roth, Bill Murray, & Senator McCheese. When we awoke the next day, we felt like shit and couldn’t remember anything.

We discovered to our amazement an entire film we’d made the night before. It wasn’t very good, something shot on camcorder about a douche bag and a girl with big breasts haunted by a horny invisible ghost while they slept. Still, if we made a whole film, what other shenanigans had we gotten up to? As usual, I chose to answer this question in film form.

So the nexus of The Hangover is this guy Doug Billings, played by hot young Hollywood up-and-comer, Actor B. Forgettable. Doug is this really rich guy who’s about to get married to a Lady. Like most rich guys who marry Ladies, he wants to have a big bachelor party. For those that don’t know, a bachelor party is this thing where an almost married dude gets drunk and has sex with as many women as possible.

Luckily, Doug has this friend named Styles who’s something of a Stanford Doctor of Partyology. Doug hasn’t been able to keep up with Style’s partying since college, but the two really used to rip it up, snapping bras, knocking books out of Asian kids’ hands, slipping ipecac into their dean’s coffee, de-pansing stupid goth girls, shoving broomsticks up butts, stuff like that.

Doug is also friends with a preppy, uptight lawyer named Dr. Faggot. If Styles represents Doug’s old life, Dr. Faggot represents his current, more responsible existence. Like Doug, Dr. Faggot is engaged to a Lady, though his Lady is a horribly hateful nag with no sense of humor or fun (played by Janeane Garofalo).

And finally, Doug is sort of new friends with his lady’s little brother, Alan Moore (played by Alan Moore). This friendship represents Doug’s future, which is maybe not great because Alan Moore is mildly retarded, and not in that sweet, innocent way. He’s more like that Down Syndrome kid in high school who not only grabbed the teacher’s boobs, but actually crushed one of them.

So, on the eve of Doug’s wedding, Styles, Dr. Faggot, and Alan Moore whisk him away to Bangkok, China for a massive bachelor party. When they wake up the next day, everyone’s memory is completely gone and Doug is missing. To find the wedding boy, they must reverse engineer the previous night using what little clues they have: there’s a tiger in the bathroom, a baby crying in the closet, Alan Moore’s head is shaved, Styles has a hospital bracelet, Dr. Faggot is missing a tooth and has a face tattoo, their Mercedes somehow got switched with a police cruiser, and a monkey keeps following them around.

So it goes like this:

First they go to the hospital addressed on Styles’ bracelet. There, they discover that they have no memory because someone gave them roofies. Alan Moore admits it was him, but he only did it because he wanted to rape them, which he did.

A doctor tells them they’d arrived from a chapel, so they go there next. To his horror, Dr. Faggot finds that he actually married a hooker named Jade. Styles high-fives him because if guys named Styles know anything about hookers its that a) they’re hot, b) they have good hearts, and c) they are addicted to penis. When they go to Jade’s house and realize the strange baby is hers, however, Styles takes back his high-five and slaps Dr. Faggot on the back of the head instead.

While talking to Jade, the guys get arrested for their stolen police car. It’s all just a misunderstanding, though. The cops understand that accidents happen in Bangkok, China and trade the police cruiser for Doug’s missing Mercedes. Just for kicks, Styles and some of the cops take turns tazing Alan Moore. Even the monkey gets a shot in.

The guys are happy to have their car back until they find a dead naked Asian dude in the trunk. Alan admits that he did it, but only because he wanted to rape him, which he did.

Back at the hotel room, the guys are amazed to find Mike Tyson waiting for them. It looks like Tyson was a big part of their debauchery the night before. Not only did he have Mel Gibson give Dr. Faggot a tattoo identical to his own, but he knocked his tooth out as well. It also comes out that Mike Tyson raped Alan Moore, and that Alan Moore raped him back, which really challenged Mike Tyson’s feelings about rape and masculinity. Apparently, the gang ditched him when he started crying too much. Mike Tyson’s pretty hurt by this because his heart has always been twenty pounds of wounded sensitivity wrapped in bacon. Also, he wants his tiger back. If they don’t deliver it to his compound in two hours, he’ll have them killed.

To deliver the tiger, they feed the monkey some roofies. When it finally falls asleep, they feed it to the tiger. When it finally falls asleep, Alan Moore rapes it. When Alan Moore finally falls asleep, Styles and Dr. Faggot load everything into the Mercedes.

As Styles hands over the tiger, Dr. Faggot dumps the naked Chinese guy in Tyson’s lawn and calls the Bangkok, China police. They take one look at the dead guy, and shoot Mike Tyson for the crime. Bangkok, China may be ahead of us when it comes to prostitutes, but they fall way short when it comes to racial politics.

Wow! What a crazy adventure so far! But the guys are nowhere nearer to finding Doug, and the wedding is in fifteen minutes! Suddenly, Styles has an epiphany. “Oh wait, I know where he is.”

Apparently, the whole night began in a casino. Alan Moore, being retarded but not all the way, felt his partial retardation would make him an automatic genius at counting cards. Because everyone was all roofied-out they went along with it. One by one, they all begin to remember how surprisingly successful Alan Moore was at counting cards, and how the casino became suspicious, and how Robert DeNiro had Don Rickles shoot Doug in the head as a warning to the rest of them.

This puts their plans and goals at an impasse. They can either take responsibility and fess-up to their role in Doug’s death, or they can take another dose of roofies and live the rest of their days in a party-filled haze that robs them of all agency over their own fates.

They, of course, choose the party route. To this day they roam Bangkok, China looking for the next party. Their teeth are gone. Their skin is plagued with tattoos. Between them, their bodies nuzzle and nurse fifteen bullets and one rectally inserted syringe. They are known as the Wolf Pack. Don’t party with them unless you’re okay with getting raped by the fat guy.

(three stars)