Their movies are, at first glance, similar: profane but intrinsically sweet-natured comedies about doughy broheems orbiting one another, water bongs and adult life. (Please blurb that line.) More to the point: Is “The Hangover Part II” a comedy? Yes, definitely, but only of a recent strain: the now-dominant form of cinematic humor we’ll call the jokeless comedy.
It’s certainly possible that you might watch it and convulsively emit human laughter. O.K., but is the movie entertaining? Well, that’s for you to decide. It’s like a “Saw”-style torture-porn movie with a laugh track, into which the shaved-headed (and autonomously funny) Zach Galifianakis has wandered, lost and bewildered and looking for the exit sign. But in the vacated space where, say, jokes might usually go - you know, those familiar contraptions of setups and punchlines the misunderstandings, mistaken identities, spoofed conventions or parodied clichés - “The Hangover Part II” offers instead shrieking, squirming, beatings, panic, a severed finger and a facial tattoo. This is not to say that nothing happens or that the movie isn’t funny.
It represents the logical evolution of a roughly five-year trend: someone has finally dared to make a mainstream American comedy in which nothing funny happens. “The Hangover Part II” arrives much like a hangover - bludgeoning, harsh and relentless - yet it’s a notable, even groundbreaking film.
