It trusted us, too - trusted us to get the joke without having it explained to us, without diagrams and maps. But that beautiful, cocksure chicken trusted the material, and it trusted its chicken instincts. A less capable actor, a cowardly actor, might have tried too hard, might have been unable to resist hitting the audience over its collective head with a hammer. The chicken's brooding, smoldering presence in the hotel suite made what might have been an ordinary bawdy comedy into something transcendent. The real hero of The Hangover is the chicken.
Not Zach Galifianakis's turn as the psycho semiretarded brother-in-law, although he was pretty good. 'The Hangover was a massive hit partly because it was the first comedy in years that was actually funnier than its trailer - lesson here, Will Ferrell - but more because it was anchored by a single breakout, bravura performance.
