Beaks here...

When I visited the set of Todd Phillips's THE HANGOVER last November, a comedy about three groomsmen struggling to reconstruct an evening of epic Vegas debauchery, I got the sense that this might be one of 2009's surprise hits. And by "surprise", I mean "off the radar". No one should be stunned that a comedy starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis might contain more than a few moments of inspired lunacy.

Though it sounds like Cooper and Helms are terrific in THE HANGOVER, it's beginning to look like this is going to be Galifianakis's breakout, "Frank the Tank" performance. If you've had the opportunity to catch Galifianakis's stand-up or his penetrating "Between Two Ferns" interview series, you know that it was only a matter of time.

Here's a rave from The Bardy Party (who, for the "Plant!" crowd, seems to be a fan of Warner Bros. and Universal movies).

Hey Harry,

I've been holding off on writing this review for sometime and I thought I should finally crack down and give you and the rest of the world the goods on "The Hangover".

A couple weeks ago I had the chance of catching Todd Phillips's (director of old school, road trip, starsky & hutch) new movie which to put it simply, Blew. My. Mind. I might be exaggerating a bit on the whole blowing my mind thing, but honestly it was extremely funny and quite entertaining. The movie is about a guy, played by Justin Bartha from the National Treasure movies, who gets taken to Vegas by his 3 friends for his bachelor party before he gets married. Each one of the friends brings their own style of humor to this film which makes it absolutely fantastic and their chemistry as actors really shines. Bradley Cooper, who is one of the best friends and a teacher at a private school, is absolutley hilarious and proves that his role in Wedding Crashers wasn't a one hit comedy wonder. Another one of the friends is played by the one and only Ed Helms, who is by far one of the funniest characters on The Office. Helms is a dentist in the movie, who has a bad relationship with his bitchy wife who doesn't want him to go to Vegas thus lying to her and creating a story that they are going to napa valley for a wine tasting weekend extravaganza.

This finally leads me to the most glorious part of this film and his name is Zack Galifianakis. Galifianakis truly steals this whole god damn movie and literally brings you to tears every 5 seconds. His dry sense of humor really turns this movie into a masterpiece. Zack Galifianakis plays the brother of the girl that Justin Bartha is getting married to and she wants her husband to take him along to Vegas so that they can bond and have a good time. The only thing is that Galifianakis is Galifianakis and he has a lot of issues, problems and a crazy mindset that makes the friends all question ... egas, plans are made to have one of the craziest nights ever starting with a toast on the roof of their hotel. After that, its the next morning and their hotel suite is ruined to shit, random naked ladies, a tiger in the bathroom and even a baby in the closet. Helms, Galifianakis and Cooper eventually realize soon after that their friend who is supposed to get married the very next day is nowhere to be found and this could be a huge problem. The biggest issue the friends have is that they all got way to hammered the night before thus blacking out and having no reccollection of the bachelor party events. This leads them to try and find some clues so that they can retrace their steps hopefully leading them to their friend. Some of the things that they find out happened include: [excised by Beaks because I promised the production we wouldn't spoil some of this shit]. The friends end up believing that their friend is being held hostage by a gang led by Ken Jeong, who plays the funny asian guy in all the Apatow movies. Jeong, who plays Mr. Chow, tells the boys that if they want their friend back they have to give him $80,000 cash or chips. Galifianakis comes up with a plan that involves counting cards because shit, if the rainman could do it..why not him?

I refuse to spoil anymore of this film and I feel pretty bad that I already gave a good amount away. In conclusion, this movie is extremely funny and I highly reccommend it to all. I haven't ever had a heart attack and don't think I ever will, seeing how I am 21 years old, slim and have normal blood pressure, but I promise you I came close to going into cardiac arrest from laughing so hard at Zack Galifianakis's crazy antics. See this motherfucking movie and thank me afterwards.
If you use this call me The Bardy Party.

I should add that I received two equally enthusiastic reviews about a month ago, but they were so light on detail that I decided against running them. I'm pretty sure The Bardy Party attended the same test screening that produced those write-ups.

Finally, for the three or four of you who are wondering, I think my set visit is embargoed until sometime close to the film's June 10th release.