Entertainment
The Ultimate Raunchy Guy Film Is Killing It On Netflix
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Modern comedies often play things way too safely, complete with watered-down jokes and a suitably milquetoast PG-13. If you want something R-rated and a bit more risqué, though, you don’t have to look far: as it turns out, the ultimate raunchy guy film is currently killing it on Netflix.
That movie is The Hangover, and you should stream this bro-tastic classic today if you’re in the mood for perfectly written (not to mention perfectly naughty) punchlines.
What Happens In Vegas Gets Forgotten In Vegas
The premise of The Hangover is that a bachelor and some of his best friends travel to Las Vegas to have one last crazy party before he settles down and gets married. But they wake up with insane hangovers and two major problems: the groom-to-be is missing, and nobody can remember exactly what went down the previous night. They must retrace their steps and find their friend, but this adorably flimsy plot is really just an excuse to plunge these boys into one debaucherous adventure after another in what might be the craziest Vegas movie ever made.
The strength of The Hangover is its cast: while he’s not in the movie all that much, Justin Bartha (best known for Gigli) is a natural as the bumbling bachelor who goes missing during the ultimate boys’ trip. Ed Helms (best known outside this movie for The Office) is hilarious as a demented dentist, while breakout star Zach Galifianakis steals scenes as the laconic weirdo of the group. Finally, Bradley Cooper (best known for A Star Is Born) is compelling as the leader of “the Wolf Pack,” making him reluctantly responsible for the antics of his crazy crew.
This quirky quartet forms the heart of the movie, but The Hangover is also filled with a stacked cast of supporting actors. This includes Heather Graham as a stripper, Ken Jeong as a gangster, and Mike Epps as a drug dealer. Mike Tyson stars as himself in a memorable cameo (certainly more memorable than that fight with Jake Paul!) that underscores just how bonkers the entire film is.
From Lowbrow Comedy To Top-Shelf Award
The Hangover ended up being the kind of box office smash hit usually reserved for superhero movies and sci-fi blockbusters. Against a budget of $35 million, this film earned $469.3 million, which was enough for the studio to greenlight a follow-up film. Since then, there have been two Hangover sequels, effectively creating one of the biggest and most influential comedy franchises in Hollywood history.
While it has more cheap, lowbrow thrills than the Vegas Strip, The Hangover still managed to impress critics more than anyone could have guessed. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 79 percent, with critics praising the film for its killer script and perfect cast chemistry. They also commended the movie for its rollicking, raunchy humor and nonstop punchlines that keep you laughing from beginning to end.
All of this critical momentum helped The Hangover win the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. This prestigious award helped cement The Hangover as a critical and crowd-pleasing franchise, even as it helped crown director Todd Phillips as one of the most bankable filmmakers in Hollywood. He went on to dip his toes into superhero cinema with the phenomenally successful Joker and the critical and commercial bomb Joker: Folie à Deux, and fans are wondering what project the director (who went from making us laugh with clownish men to showing why the sad clown cries) will tackle next.
Dude, Where’s My Friend?
If I’m being honest, The Hangover was a movie that I ended up liking in spite of myself. While I had previously enjoyed Ed Helms in The Office, the rest of the Wolfpack were relative unknowns when the film came out, so I didn’t know what to expect from the cast. I also worried that the plot of this movie was way too flimsy, and jokingly suggested that it might as well have been called Dude, Where’s My Friend?
Fortunately, the cast was flawless: each actor was deeply amusing on their own, but their killer chemistry ensured that the Wolf Pack was more than the sum of its already-hilarious parts. The movie transformed most of the core cast into genuine movie stars who were soon headlining films of their very own. When revisiting The Hangover, I couldn’t help but think that this success was well-earned and that this movie would have fallen apart if each actor hadn’t given their all to every unhinged scene and each delightfully out of pocket punchline.
Will you agree that The Hangover is the ultimate raunchy guy film, or would you rather get blackout drunk in Las Vegas than watch this one through to the credits? You won’t know until you grab the remote and watch this breakout film (maybe with your baby, or at least your favorite tiger) on Netflix. If you want to keep the party going, the two sequels are available on the same streamer, meaning that even more drunken hijinks are only a click away!
