Hide the Bridemaids

Rating: 5/10 (17 August 2005)

"Wedding Crashers" is an oddity. It's a film I appreciate, but not one I particularly like. It has all the makings of a great comedy: witty dialogue, raunchy humor and Owen Wilson, a genius actor. All these pieces mesh perfectly, and yet I just was not thrilled. By the end I had the odd feeling that my soul was completely drained, and I lurched to my car like a zombie.
The film makes good points about the nature of relationships and expertly satirizes guys like it's titular characters, men who go to weddings uninvited to score chicks. There was even a wonderful scene early on featuring costar Vince Vaughn delivering a rapid-fire speech about the "does she or doesn't she like me" nature of first dates that deserves applause as a short masterpiece.
The real failing, I think, is having Owen Wilson's character, John, fall in love. The first portion of the film, showing John and buddy Jeremy actually crashing weddings is hilarious and quick paced. Then John meets Claire Cleary, falls in love, and goes on the worn-out mission of one-upping her secretly evil boyfriend, Sack. The laughs quickly fade in favor of straight-up romance, returning only occasionally to liven things up. Jeremy's story line of being raped by his obsessive wedding date and, later, her gay brother is good stupid fun in the style of "There's Something About Mary" and other films of its ilk. The main story, which amounts to John making moon-eyes at Claire and Claire returning the sentiment as Sack schemes, would be an average romantic movie on it's own, but it drags down what was a great comedy.
The acting is hit-or-miss. Vince Vaughn is superb as the beleaguered Jeremy. His physical comedy is tempered with his verbal wit to perfectly balance the two. Isla Fisher is also great as Jeremy's obsessed wedding crashing victim Gloria, who goes all out to get her man even though he's decidedly done with her.
Owen Wilson, one of my favorite actors, is listless and dim as John. Romance is not Owen's thing at all, and it kills me to say he was horribly bad. But that's what it is. Rachael McAdams and Bradley Cooper are stereotypical and mundane as Claire and Sack. They phoned in their performances and, man oh man, it shows and it hurts.
Christopher Walken, who is normally hilarious, is forced to check his comedic persona at the door to play the straight-laced Commerce Secretary Cleary. Walken could have saved this film if he'd been allowed to show his zany side.
I really do appreciate every aspect of the film. It has great comedy, fair enough romance, and some brilliant acting to cover for all the bad stuff. I just can't bring myself to give it a fresh rating. Maybe romance and comedy just don't belong together (that would explain "Just Married" and every Julia Roberts film aside from "Sleeping with the Enemy"). I thought 'this is pretty good', but I didn't feel it.
"Wedding Crashers" is what you'd call an 'aborted masterpiece'. It starts strong, and then shoots itself dead half-way through. The second half of this film reminds me of a line from Errol Morris' "Gates of Heaven": "There's your dog. Your dog's dead. But where's the thing that made it move? It had to be something...didn't it?" This dog died too soon, and I'm not sure what happened to the thing that made it move in the first place. It's a captivating mystery.