(15) (1hr 39 mins)

Starring: Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: **

“WE lost Doug...” mumbles a disheveled and bloodied man into his mobile phone, sweating in the heat of the Nevada desert.

“What are you saying? We’re getting married in five hours!” shrieks Doug’s bride- to-be.

“Yeah. That’s not going to happen...”

So begins this film, a bawdy, sporadically amusing buddy comedy about three best men who ‘misplace’ the groom during a stag weekend in Vegas.

The scattershot screenplay reads like the result of a drunken brainstorming session, peppered with bizarre, disparate interludes including a tangle with a stolen tiger, the extraction of a tooth and Mike Tyson singing Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight.

Gags predominantly miss rather than hit, but the rapport between the leads ensures at least one or two belly laughs.

Indeed, the central cast appears to be having a ball. It’s a shame their hilarity isn't infectious; the humour is puerile.

Two days before he walks down the aisle, Doug (Justin Bartha) heads for the desert strip with his pals and eccentric future brother-in- law Alan (Zach Galifianakis).

Upon arrival at the luxurious Caesars Palace hotel in Vegas, several hours of drinking ensue, they awake with no memory of the night before - and no groom.

As they retrace their alcohol-fuelled steps, they begin to understand quite how much trouble they and Doug are in.

Directed by Todd Phillips, whose previous male- bonding exercises include Road Trip and Old School, this is a mish-mash of ideas which never gel.

If there is a method to screenwriters’ madness, it remains hidden until the end credits when snapshots reveal what happened in Vegas in lurid detail.