Review of Wedding Crashers (2005) by Stevenf — 01 Nov 2013

This isn’t a fluid and straight shooting comedy, but ‘Wedding Crashers’ manages to push out enough laughs to make this easily enjoyable and often a genuinely funny. But these genuine moments are comprised of smaller moments that happen in the broader scheme, there are a lot of things going on to the point where many characters get left behind, but I’ll get to that. We meet Jeremy and John, played by the excellent comedy duo of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, a pair of wedding crashers, there is no catch here, this is what they actually do, besides being lawyers, they crash an obscene amount of weddings as a way to bed various lucky ladies who are present at the wedding, then they move on, some of these scenes are terrific as they fake their way into the ceremony and then deliver the goods in the reception. The real punch comes in the form of Treasury Secretary Clearly, who is played by none other than Christopher Walken, this guy can make anything sound funny, yet he is grossly underused in this comedy, is that even possible? But even so, Jeremy and John are after the daughters of the man, seeing this as the jackpot, they get in quite deep, Jeremy (Vaughn) seduces the crazy and unstable Gloria (Isla Fisher) while John falls for the irresistible Claire (Rachel McAdams). But Claire has a fiancee, the not very nice Sack (Bradley Cooper), who is just quite uncomfortable to watch in each scene he is in, Cooper is a phenomenal actor, but his role in this film is jarring and distracting. The bum note of the film is the opportunities it misses, dragging out scenes for longer than they should and not giving enough for Walken to do, but the film has excellent moments with Vaughn and Wilson on top form, they often stray off in perfect comic timing which unfortunately loses steam as the film ticks on, there is a lot of talent that is underused, such as Henry Gibson playing a priest who doesn’t really have much to do apart from making various faces to show shock or other emotions at stories he is told, or the forgotten son, Todd (Keir O’Donnell), who has many funny moments and setups, but ultimately these don’t amount to much. One of the highlights actually comes from a small role for Will Ferrell, playing the master of the wedding crashing game, his moments on screen are comedy gold but just don’t last long enough. In the midst, this is still a funny film, it has plenty of gags that work in relation to the film and has its fair share of top notch scenes, particularly more candid ones amongst the talent rather than she they are all in the same room at the same time.

The idea and some of the delivery is there, this has an all star cast but simply loses track too many times which leaves its consistency in the gutter, but some decent performances and also some side splitting moments make this enjoyable enough, but a bit too long for its misplacement.