- Direction
- Acting
- Story
“A Shawshank Redemption” cum “Prison Break” escape, a clueless giraffe getting its head guillotined on a freeway, the sudden death of a “life partner,” a forced intervention, chickens high on cocaine, breaking and entering wearing dog collars – “The Hangover Part III” is dead on arrival.
It in fact makes “The Hangover Part 2″ (in Bangkok) look like a gracious winner, and one wishes it had followed the same formula – get drunk, drugged, lose Doug (Justin Bartha) and go on a wild manhunt. Instead, “The Hangover Part III” skews towards a dark, more ugly sense of humour, and it’s quite sad.
The third, and buzz is the final in this warped trilogy of hung over after parties, debauchery fails to even bring a smile to the face. Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) lands the “Wolfpack” in trouble. Yup, this time it’s not Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis), but Chow doing the chatting. The common thread is that Doug’s (Justin Bartha) the scapegoat once again and it’s up to Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms) to rescue him one last time.
It’s a gold, robbery, kidnapping, mafia chase which lands everyone where they started: Vegas. Even Cooper’s drop dead looks couldn’t lift the film. The only high point: Melissa McCarthy as the bad ass Cassie. This girl’s on fire. If only director Todd Philips had started where the film ends – in a hotel room, with Alan, Cassie, Phil, Stu with breasts and a pink undie, and Chow doing a full monty (pathetic!), “The Hangover III” might’ve piqued our interest. The film’s yet another example of ditching the sequels and sticking to the original.
