Todd Phillips: New Hero of Comedy

If you're not a fairly big cinephile, you might not immediately know the name, though no doubt there's a flicker of recognition, for Todd Phillips has been around for a fair old chunk of the Noughties, contributing to some of the best-known comedies of the period until hitting the ultimate big time with The Hangover- the comedy of this year. He might not be an immediately obvious choice for this kind of feature, but the fact of the matter is, like it or not, Phillips' output has come on leaps and bounds over the last few years. From early documentary Frat House, to Road Trip, Old School and The Hangover- consider this line-up and you will see what I mean: consistent improvement, one step at a time, from the sloppy, adolescent humour of Road Trip to the frat-boy bravado-comedy of Old School (plus an excellently hemmed-in performance by Mr Over-Actor himself Will Ferrell) and on to the laugh-fest that is The Hangover,the progression has been marked and obvious. Frat House is a more difficult piece to judge on the same standards, as it purports to being a work of fact looking at the darker side of the fraternity culture in America, but as with the recent American Teen "documentary" large sequences are in fact fictional, set up for the cameras in the interest of entertainment. Not right, but as long as TV shows like The Hills are able to get away with it, the longer this culture of deceit will reign- Phillips was perhaps rather unfortunate in that Frat House was never aired in its intended slot on HBO due to the set-up scenes (despite winning two awards at Sundance and being a good film when it sticks to reality) and is condemned to being a footnote in the annals of American film-making. But as a mark of Phillips progress, the documentary serves a good purpose- it taught its co-helmer a lesson (whether he publicly admits guilt or not), and rather than seeking to change reality to reflect the more entertaining elements of Frat House life that existed in his head, Phillips moved into an arena of film-making that wouldn't be so damning of his creativity. Apart from perhaps his most recent film, these are not masterpieces by any shade- Frat House is compelling viewing from a topical stand-point, but wears an amateurish mark that is undeniable, and the (allegedly) set-up scenes are way too obvious to miss while Road Trip is essentially just American Pie on the road, with a few funnier gaffs, and more believable male performances. Old School was the point where Phillips seemed to get a better grip on the audience he would later wow with The Hangover- it is the filmic point in which the realisation dawned that to make a good maturer comedy, film-makers need to stop thinking that they have to impress girls with how big their nuts are, abandon the teenage gross-out humour and base the success of their films on more rounded characters, played well by good actors and not force-feed laughs. Well, almost anyway- it would take until The Hangover to iron out the remaining issues. But then discerning readers will have released there's a gap in that filmography, in fact a six year gap in which Phillips put two films out as a director (he swings both ways, taking projects as a producer and writer as well as pointing cameramen at people). It is true that in the gap between Old School and The Hangover, Phillips but out two unnecessary remakes- Starsky & Hutch, and School For Scoundrels, and his progress faltered- alarmingly so in the case of School for Scoundrels. Again, both have their redeeming qualities in patches, and there are hints that Phillips knows how to make good comedy, but neither fit in with his grown-up Frat boy manifesto, and are largely hampered by comparatively poor scripts, and suffer badly in comparison to their originals (it even bores me to repeatedly have to say that). The Hangover, though, is a piece of comedy genius- never overly gross-out, and with an accomplishment that Judd Appatow took much longer to channel (if he actually has): I herald its greatest success as the fact that it doesn't immediately appear to be a modern attempt to channel the faltering ghost of the National Lampoon animal, which so many of its ilk have attempted before . True, there are the same frat-boy qualities that made that sometimes great series (especially the older and better ones) beloved, but The Hangover is something fresher, and something a lot funnier. It is a far more mature comedy than Phillips' earlier films, and is filled with the enormously quotable moments that make good comedies truly great- as long as there are fans out there willing to walk around repeating every funny line, and re-enacting skits from a comedy film, longevity, and even cult are assured. But, then you already know what we thought of The Hangover, thanks to Ray's review, which says it all- though I don't know if I agree with his hyperbolic treatment of Old School... Interestingly, all of the great artesans give themselves cameos- it is the means by which art celebrates the artist most profoundly: a Hitchcock film wasn't a Hitchcock film without a glimpse of the jowly old cad somewhere along the lines, and Sir Stan Lee regularly pops up in the Marvel films he helped give birth to (albeit showing some "postmodern"- i.e. shit- acting skills along the way). So it's no surprise that Phillips pops up in his own films- playing high-brow figures like 'Foot Lover on Bus' (Road Trip), 'Gang Bang Guy' (Old School) and 'Elevator Blow-Job Guy' (The Hangover). Seriously though, perhaps new-found maturity is not the right virtue to be extolling here- a tentative glance at his upcoming projects confirms that they include projects called The Chadster, Man-Witch and Psycho Funky Chimp- hardly the most advanced sounding projects, and I have a nagging suspicion that The Hangover may well be his grand opus, and the decision to go ahead with a less-than-obvious sequel could well spell confirmation that the film-making community has figured as much as well. Think about it, it was a phenomenally success film, with limited (that's not to say no) precedent talent-wise, and it came to a resolution well at the end of the film- why then has it been optioned for sequel that would threaten to retread too much of the material that made The Hangover such an original and memorable film, and devalue the merits of its predecessor? I can only hope this is not a symptom of the Hollywood machine; always so eager to squeeze every last drop of potential out of a project, often with scant disregard for the quality of the sequel(s). For now, before we get too far ahead of ourselves and judge him for the potential shortfalls of a movie he hasn't even made yet, I'll say one thing: on the strength of The Hangover, and the good work he has done before it, Todd Phillips can heartily be welcomed aboard as the newest of New Heroes of Comedy. The Hangover is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Download and On Demand.