DVD Reviews: The Hangover/District 9

Published on Wednesday 23 December 2009 18:02

THE HANGOVER WARNER BROS, DISTRICT 9 SONY

GIVEN that over-indulgence is a key trait of the silly season, The Hangover is your chance to indulge in a spot of method viewing. Hilariously funny, but in a likeable, easy-going kind of way, it's almost the perfect morning-after film choice, with more to commend it than any film about a stag night gone awry should really have.

That can be put down to a smartly structured script that finds friends-by-association Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) trying to retrace their steps and locate their about-to-be-married mutual friend Doug (Justin Bartha) after a drug-and-alcohol-induced memory blackout during a pre-wedding blow-out in Las Vegas. Withholding the gross-out debauchery, we're not party to anything they don't remember, which makes it more fun trying to piece together the night of carnage that has resulted in a trashed suite, a tiger in their bathroom, a baby in their closet and a missing groom.

Benefiting immensely from its barely known cast and the raucous energy director Todd Phillips manages to capture, the leads have the kind of chemistry it often takes years to harness.

Naturally, things go from bad to worse, but as with the worst hangover, the relief that accompanies its passing is replicated here with a no harm/no foul happy ending and a fill-in-the-blanks photomontage that allows us to laugh at the shameful behaviour of others.

District 9, on the other hand, offers some meaty sci-fi food for thought. Running neck-and-neck with Moon as the most innovative, intriguing and exciting sci-fi film of the year (suck it up, Avatar fans!), this relatively low-budget debut from 29-year-old South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp once again demonstrates the benefits of a tight, well-executed, ideas-driven premise over a bloated showcase for the advancement of special effects.

That premise revolves around a colony of aliens who have been stranded on Earth in Johannesburg for 20 years.

Their increasingly nervous human hosts, who pejoratively call them "prawns", are keen to relocate them all to shanty towns.

But civil unrest is brewing, and when a viral outbreak results in the bureaucrat responsible for relocating the aliens taking on their characteristics, a society-destabilising game of cat-and-mouse ensues as the authorities try to track him down.

Shooting documentary-style, Blomkamp milks the racial allegories for all they're worth, and offers a far more trenchant critique of intolerance, exploitation and corporate greed than James Cameron could manage with all the resources in the world at his disposal.

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