Wedding Crashers
It was almost inevitable if
the Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson/Ben Stiller/Will Ferrell movie cartel (with
junior member Luke Wilson) keep making movies with each other a few of them
would have to be funny. And here's your proof. Wedding
Crashers is indeed a very good comedy, and though only three of the five
team members made it along for the ride (Ben and Luke sat this one out...)
it is the best film yet made by these guys. Granted, it is beating out
such marginal movies as Old School, Zoolander, Starsky & Hutch, The Royal
Tanenbaums, Dodge Ball and their ilk, but at least for the first time in
years I'm interested in what these guys will do next.
The story is wonderfully
simple. Jeremy (Vaughn) and John (Wilson) are divorce arbitrators.
On weekends they have a simple ritual they crash wedding banquets, eat up
lots of food, drink lots of booze and nail a member of the bride's party.
This allows the stars in
particular Vaughn who is in primo sleaze-ball spin mode; this guy could sell
heaters in Ecuador to luxuriate in the sheer thrill of lying and
misbehavior. Half of the fun of the film is the convoluted series of
rules which they have placed upon themselves and how they justify ignoring
them.
They reach new heights when
they decide to crash one of the biggest weddings of the social season the
daughter of a high-powered politician (Walken). It is their biggest
challenge, particularly when they both get involved with one of the
politician's other daughters; John falls for the beautiful and sweet
daughter (McAdams) and Jeremy hooks up with the possibly unhinged daughter
(Fisher in a star-making turn) who is as he calls it "a stage four clinger."
The funny thing is that
Wilson and McAdams are the center of the romantic story. While McAdams
is charming as always and Wilson is much better (and less annoying) than he normally is on film, Vaughn and Fisher are infinitely more interesting
as the other couple.
Honestly, the film kind of
loses steam in the last half-hour when Wilson is obsessively moping about
McAdams and it causes a rift between the friends. But despite the lull
in the ending, even by the time that Ferrell shows up
for a typically smarmy, annoying cameo, the film has built up so much
goodwill that even he can't sap the audience's good feeling. (7/05)
Jay
S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2005
PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted August 5, 2005.
