Review: Wedding Crashers


Enjoyable, generally funny 2005 David Dobkin (“Clay Pigeons”, “Shanghai Knights”) comedy with the irresistible idea of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson playing divorce attorneys who crash weddings on the side to get laid and have fun. Which is all well and good (well, good for them anyway) until something unexpected happens…one of them falls in love. At the wedding of one of politician Christopher Walken’s daughters, Wilson and Vaughn make plays for the other two sisters. For Wilson, he falls in love with Rachel McAdams, who is unfortunately attached to Bradley Cooper, basically a grown-up Eddie Haskell, who hides his true repellent self from McAdams and the family. Meanwhile, Vaughn has caught himself a nymphomaniac in younger sister Isla Fisher, who might also be a bunny-boiler. And then there’s Walken’s sex-starved wife Jane Seymour (totally miscast in my view, Bond Girl or not) who tries a Mrs. Robinson (or Stifler’s Mom) on Wilson at one point. Ellen Dow plays the same dotty old bag she always played but here takes a leaf out of Betty White’s foul-mouthed book as well. That’s Dwight Yoakam and Rebecca DeMornay as two of the boys’ clients at the beginning. Will Ferrell has his obligatory cameo as an expert crasher who now only does funerals (Sounds funny but isn’t nearly as funny as Ferrell can be).



The two stars work effortlessly and often hilariously together, the girls are wonderful too. McAdams is truly incandescent, and Aussie former soap star Fisher broke out internationally here to create a very funny and loopy character. Such a shame then about the poorly drawn characters played by Cooper, Dow, and most sadly, the usually excellent Walken. Also, the plot itself is a bit paint-by-numbers and unbelievable at times (especially in the latter half).



Still, it’s funny (and Wilson and Vaughn elicit more charm than perhaps their characters even deserve), and given that it’s a comedy, I guess that makes the film a success (for some reason, the line ‘Make Me a Bicycle, Clown!’ coming from a snotty little kid, had me in stitches). Funny is funny, and this one’s definitely funny. An unexpected delight, really.



Rating: B-

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