"I have a dumb sense of humor," utters Zach Galifianakis' Alan during "The Hangover Part 3." Sadly, that statement might be the best way to describe the final installment in the raunchy franchise.
The film initiates with a sequence in a Bangkok jail where Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) is making his great escape. Moments later, the film jumps over to the United States and showcases Alan's continued immaturity. After causing his father's death, his old pals Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Doug (Justin Bartha) decide that he needs to be taken to a rehabilitation center. Alan agrees but on the way to his new home the crew is kidnapped by a mobster (John Goodman) who wants to retrieve money that Chow stole from him. The mobster kidnaps Doug and forces the other three to seek out Chow.
The film's opening sequence is its highlight as everything that comes after it is devoid of any real novelty. The plot is a mess. As the gangster introduces himself he relates an event in a parking lot that has no consequence or significance to the story. The viewer anticipates that this event might reveal important information, but when the scene moves in another direction, that earlier flashback winds up feeling empty and superfluous. Characters from past installments make cameo appearances in the film but do little more than serve as plot devices. The film actually moves at a rather tepid pace with neither of its two major action sequences creating any real tension or suspense. The viewer hoping for a sense of excitement could potentially find himself/herself bored with the predictable trajectory that these sequences take.
Those hoping for laughs will be disappointed by the film's dependence on punch lines that never deliver. Interestingly, the screenwriters seem to know that most of their jokes are lame and instead resort to inducing laughter from shock value. The film is not as raunchy as the previous installment but has its share of horrifying imagery. A giraffe gets decapitated and causes a massive traffic accident. Alan's reaction to the explosions and chaos are supposed to be played for laughs, but the audience that this writer was with did not fall into the trap. Given the seriousness of the matter, director Todd Phillips' decision to indulge in such a catastrophe for comic effect almost turns the viewer against the film. People looking for an example of Hollywood's mindless filmmaking and continued depictions of gratuitous violence need not look farther than this opening sequence in "The Hangover Part 3." The film itself contains no hangover, but the end credits sequence, easily the most intolerable moment in the film, pays off in this respect.
When the punch lines and grotesque imagery are absent, the viewer is forced to bear witness to the nuisance that is Galifianakis. In fact, he might be the film's greatest detriment. His performance is filled with juvenile behavior that never really comes across as genuine; he always seems to be trying too hard to be funny but never actually is. When his friends tell him that he needs to go to rehab, he lets out an annoying squeal that seems to last forever. In another scene he tells his mother that he would have preferred her to die instead of his father before taking a picture with his portrait. In subsequent funeral scenes, he strikes silly poses that fail to incite any kind of laughter or compassion for the character; he grows more and more irritating by the second. At one moment he almost falls off of Caesar's palace to his demise; this writer was actually hoping that the screenwriters would have taken this bold step and gotten rid of this distracting plot device. His annoyance might simply be a chicken-egg situation as Alan must be the most pathetic and idiotic creation in cinema history. The film hopes to develop a character arc in which Alan grows into a mature adult ready to take on the responsibility of independence. The film shows the viewer that Alan goes through this transition by saving his friends, but the transformation is created on a deeply superficial level with little really indicating that this arc has been fully resolved or developed.
The other characters remain cardboard creations. Cooper's Phil continues to be a risk taker whose strongest attribute is muttering obscenities at every turn. Helms' Stu continues to be a coward with no desire for adventure even though previous installments indicated that he had overcome his phobias. Chow is a cross between a homosexual and Asian stereotype with an emphatic accent and a disgusting sense of humor. In one scene he eats dog food; in another he sniffs another character's rear.
Those hoping for mindless entertainment might like "The Hangover Part 3." However, based on the tepid response from the audience of this screening, it is possible that few will actually find anything to enjoy in this superfluous disaster. The characters are irritating, the story is mindless, and the humor is non-existent and at times insulting. There is however a silver lining to all of this: "The Hangover Part 3" is supposedly the final installment in this franchise. Hopefully that proves to be true.
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