Hangover Movie: Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused premiered in theaters on 1993. The film features a large ensemble cast of actors including Matthew McConaughey, Jason London, Ben Affleck, Mila Jovovich, Cole Hauser, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams, Nicky Katt, and Rory Cochrane.

Dazed and Confused opens at a Texas suburban high school in 1976 on the last day of school. The future seniors are getting ready to haze the incoming freshmen. Also, the star of the football team, Randall Floyd, is asked to sign a pledge not to take drugs over the summer or do anything that would look bad for the school.

The seniors haze the freshman boys by catching them and spanking them with wooden paddles that are made especially for the occasion.  Freshman Mitch Kramer escapes the hazing when Carl’s mom pulls a shotgun on senior Fred O’Bannion (played by Ben Affleck), but he is later cornered at his baseball game, and violently paddled.

The freshman girls are hazed too, but their hazing consists more of humiliation than physical punishment. They are rounded up in the school parking lot by the senior girls, who cover them in flour, ketchup and raw eggs. The girls then are put in dog collars and are led over to senior boys and told to propose to them.

Later, everyone starts gearing up for a big party at senior Kevin Pickford’s house. Plans are foiled when Kevin gets a keg delivered before his parents are even at the door. Instead, students loiter around the Emporium, listen to rock music, cruise the neighborhood and stop at the hamburger drive-in. Eventually, they all meet up at an impromptu keg party at in a field under the moon tower. Mitch Kramer smokes pot and drinks for the first time.

Towards the end of the night, Floyd goes to the football field with a bunch of friends to smoke pot on the fifty yard line. They are caught by local police and the football coach who lectures Floyd about hanging out with losers. The coach again pressures Floyd to sign the pledge. Floyd says he may play football, but again refuses to sign the pledge. Mitch Kramer stumbles into his house at dawn, and his mother warns him against coming home that late again.

Dazed and Confused was well received by critics, but its original earnings at the box office were somewhat disappointing. However, the movie later became a cult movie classic and made a lot of money through the sale of DVDs.

Dazed and Confused isn’t really about anything. There’s no serious plot line. It’s basically just a comedy; a coming of age film. It’s more like a party movie, and there isn’t much structure. It’s more like an anthropological look at these uniquely American rites of passage. The movie has been praised for its reflection of American culture and its eclectic soundtrack. If you haven’t seen Dazed and Confused, I would highly recommend it. This is one of the funniest movies to come out in the last 20 years.

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