Comedy

The Hangover was a surprise hit both sides of the pond, despite the formulaic nature of the story, and it succeeded because it was genuinely funny and an entertaining bout of mayhem. The group dynamic was well balanced with Bradley Cooper’s nice guy player Phil contrasting well with Ed Helms as the anxious, under-the-thumb Stu Price, who, it turns out, is some kind of absolute heathen when he hits the drink.

The Hangover’s group of protagonists was rounded off by unstable, clingy chaos magnet Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis), brother-in-law to missing groom Doug.

The three of them spent the film trying to find their friend who was lost during a night of madness, fuelled by Alan’s illicit addition of rohypnol to the guys’ drinks.

They eventually found Doug on the roof and got him safely to his wedding, albeit frighteningly orange from his time trapped in the blaring sun. Alan came clean about his part in the widespread memory loss and got belted by Mike Tyson, they all befriended a semi-psychotic, highly excitable gangster called Chow (Ken Jeong) and Stu left his wife after realising she was a very angry and unpleasant woman.

So, it made loads of money (loads and loads of money) and the inevitable was, well, inevitable. The Hangover Part II sees our guys move the same situation to a different location, in a move that was guaranteed to make money, and odds-on to prove disappointing.

This time Stu is getting married to Lauren in Thailand, despite her father’s opinion that he is a waste of space and unfit to marry her. Alan manages to tag along, and they meet Lauren’s brother Teddy, who is an exceptional student and well-mannered, but sheltered, good little boy.

They have some drinks on a beach, and then wake up in the midst of hell, also known as a Bangkok hotel room, with no Doug (again), a pet monkey and Teddy’s finger, with no Teddy. They quickly find out that Doug left early when things got hectic, so once more it is Phil, Stu and Alan trying to piece together the night before, whilst looking for the missing brother. Without Lauren’s brother, who is somewhere missing a finger, the wedding is sure to hit a slight snag…

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If someone told me that, for the amusement of the masses, I had to endure electric shocks to my nether regions, or become trapped in a car full of highly agitated bees, I would firmly decline, although a plentiful cheque and offers of free world travel and beer could probably turn my head…

The baffling thing about the Jackass crew is that they were doing it back in the day, when the cash probably wasn’t that great and they had to film in their houses. In all fairness, they seem to just enjoy creating comedy derived from physical and or/mental anguish, as well as the odd gross-out skit or moment of intense embarrassment.

Before reviewing their third big screen outing, it is important to highlight the fact that Jackass provides a very divisive form of entertainment. Those who do not like Jackass have their reasons, and shouldn’t be told to change their minds, and there are plenty of Jackass haters out there.

However, this reviewer finds the deranged, dumb, daft but deftly planned stunts intensely funny, often to the point that a quick dash to the loo is required in order to avoid a messy mishap.

So, subjective opinion stated, let’s move on to Jackass 3, or Jackass 3D as it was released in the cinemas.

After a four year hiatus, presumably needed for healing, therapy, psychological evaluation, rehab etc, the Jackass crew have assembled another 90 minutes of carefully engineered moments of hilarity, provided for our amusement.

Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius (Party Boy) and the rest of the lunatics go about attempting to cause each other as much pain as possible, whilst seeking out new, innovative ways to have pain bestowed upon them by external sources. There is, as always, no story or character arc, and no real beginning, middle or end. Just utter chaos.

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The Kids Are Alright is the Oscar-nominated comedy-drama telling the story of a married lesbian couple, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore), who have both given birth using the same sperm donor. Nic and Jules seem happy enough, but cracks are appearing in their once stable and loving relationship, and Nic’s working hours as an obstetrician are certainly not helping.

Matters are made worse by young son Laser (Josh Hutcherson), who wishes to seek out his biological father in order to satisfy his growing curiosity. Laser knows that Nic and Jules will forbid this, and he is too young to legally find the donor himself, so the inquisitive teenager persuades his 18-year-old sister Joni (Mia Wasikowska) to do this for him.

The kids meet up with sperm donor Paul (Mark Ruffalo) and it quickly becomes clear that he wants to be part of their lives. Inevitably, Nic and Jules find out what their children have been up to and condemn their actions, but come to the conclusion that it’s best Laser and Joni make their own choices.

The couple agree to meet up with Paul, who gets the frosty reception from Nic, but a warm welcome from Jules, leading to further arguments and an increased strain on their already rocky relationship. His involvement pushes the limits of a once happy family, and forces them to confront and understand their true feelings for one another.

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Think Planes, Trains and Automobiles with a slightly different end goal and you pretty much have Due Date wrapped up, so you might want to move on and watch something else…. or, alternatively, you could watch this hilarious comedy and laugh from start to finish, as I did.

If, like me, you felt sorry for Steve Martin having to endure John Candy on a journey from hell, then you are about to feel ten times worse for expectant father Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr), as he embarks on the roughest of rides with the travel companion from Hell.

Hurrying to catch a flight home to see the birth of his first child, Peter Highman has a chance meeting with aspiring actor, and all-round disaster magnet Ethan Tremblay (The Hangover’s Zach Galifianakis).

The commonly occurring accidental bag switch has Peter searched for drugs and, after an incident with Tremblay on the plane, he is thrown off and placed on the No Fly List. To make things worse, he has left his bag, containing his wallet and ID, on the recently departed former mode of transport.

With no way of getting home, no money and no ID to hire a car, he is pretty much stranded, until his rescuer arrives - yes you guessed it - Tremblay, and his brilliant barking bud, Sunny.

As an aspiring actor, Tremblay is heading to Hollywood to pursue his career, and offers Peter a lift.  Left with no choice, Peter begrudgingly accepts and the two unlikely companions set off on a bumpy journey to LA that will destroy cars, friendships and… er… Peter.

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It’s been almost a decade since a frantic John Lithgow and his alien family left Earth, bringing about the end of hit US sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. Since then, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who played Tommy, has made his name on the indie film circuit by appearing in some truly excellent, offbeat films.

His brave turn in Mysterious Skin and brilliant performance in modern noir Brick were clear signs that Gordon-Levitt is very talented actor, with a good eye for a great role.

In (500) Days of Summer, Gordon-Levitt plays Tom Hansen, an ex-architecture student who now works as a writer for a greeting card company. His generally nonchalant disposition is radically altered when Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) enters his life. Summer does not believe in true love, but finds Tom interesting enough to start dating him.

She makes it clear that she has no intention of becoming involved in a relationship; this spells disaster because Tom does believe in true love and thinks he has found it.

At the beginning, it is revealed that the couple break-up, and the nonlinear format of the narrative serves to show us sporadic moments of their time together. The relationship is deconstructed, and various days numbered between 1 and 500 are used to bookmark the film’s events.

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Sandra Bullock plays boss-from-hell Margaret Tate, the ferocious senior editor at a New York publishing company, who terrorises her colleagues, sacks her employees on a whim and will go to any measure to secure an Oprah interview for one of her colleagues. But there’s one stumbling block to her success. She’s Canadian, and having neglected to sign some immigration papers, finds herself on the brink of deportation.

Fumbling for a solution, Margaret has a brainwave: marry an American, and the coveted green card is hers for the taking. Since all the men she knows are far too scared of her to consider a romantic attachment, let alone matrimony, she blackmails her underling Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) into marrying her, and he in turn demands a promotion and the publication of his first novel.

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Whilst Judd Apatow’s name may not appear on the closing credits, his influence in this so-called “bromantic-comedy” is palpable. Following in the footsteps of Apatow’s irreverent comedies Superbad and Pineapple Express, I Love You Man, written and directed by John Hamburg, probes the concept of “man-love” - that intimate, zealous friendship between two straight males - with perception, wit, and plenty of cringeworthy moments along the way.

Apatow alumnus Paul Rudd plays Peter Klaven, an awkward nice-guy who begins the film proposing to his long-term girlfriend Zooey (Rushida Jones). Always more comfortable in female company, Peter realises he doesn’t have any close male friends to perform the role of best man, and so embarks on a series of luckless “man-dates” in an attempt to widen his circle of friends. After some predictable misunderstandings (such as when dinner with the seemingly perfect Doug turns a bit gay), Peter finds his man.

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Following on from Tamara Jenkins’ ascerbic directorial debut Slums of Beverly Hills, The Savages takes the theme of the dysfunctional family and applies it to the older generation.

Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Jon Savage, a shabby academic who spends his days agonising over a book on Berthold Brecht that he is writing. His neurotic younger sister Wendy, played by Laura Linney, is an aspiring but unsuccessful New York playwright who makes ends meet by temping. They are not particularly close, but enjoy banter about Sam Shepherd and the theatre of the absurd, none of which comes in very useful when they receive a call about their ailing father who has started plastering the walls with his own excrement.

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Updating the body-swap genre for a teenage audience, 17 Again stars young heartthrob Zac Efron as a failed sports star who is given another chance at life.

Forty-something Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry) can only be described as a loser. Unemployed and on the brink of a divorce, he dreams of the days when he excelled on the school basketball team and dated the prettiest girl in the class, little knowing her pregnancy would mean the end of his dreams of sports-stardom and a prestigious college scholarship. Then one day during a nostalgia trip to his old school he meets a mysterious, twinkly-eyed caretaker and falls into a Twilight Zone vortex to emerge as a muscle-bound Zac Efron, aka Mike aged 17. His body may have regressed 20 years, but his surroundings are very much as they left him: same wife, same kids, same problems.

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Set in contemporary Beijing, Zhang Yang’s bittersweet comedy Shower focuses on the proprietor of a traditional Beijing bathhouse, Mr Liu (Xu Zhu), and his relationship with his two sons. The eldest, Daming (Pu Quianxin), is a rich yuppie who fled the family home to pursue a business career in the southern Chinese region of Shenzhen. He lost contact with his elderly father years ago, but has returned after receiving an alarming postcard from his mentally challenged younger brother, Erming (Jiang Wu), suggesting that Mr Liu has died. In fact his father is very much alive, though frail in health, and presiding over the closed world of the bathhouse, where elderly local men gather to relax away from the demands of home, exchange gossip and stage fights between their pet crickets. When Daming suggests that his father retire, Mr Liu brushes him off: “I’ve done this all of my life and I like doing it!”.

Standing faithfully at Mr Liu’s side is Erming, who takes delight in scrubbing the floors, manning the desk and greeting clients. Erming’s relationship with his father is a close one, and both take a childish delight in dousing each other with water and seeing who can run fastest round the block.

The difference in world views between Daming and his aging father is cleverly played out in the opening scene, where we see a smartly dressed businessman step into a coin-operated shower akin to a carwash. This is in direct contrast to Mr Liu’s establishment, where men will spend literally all day bathing, soaking and enjoying a whole range of peripheral services, including haircuts, massage, and the benefit of Mr Liu’s wise council.

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