Vince Vaughn should get an Oscar for his tour de force

Rating: 9/10 (23 July 2005)

"Wedding Crashers" is the funniest movie I've seen so far. The film is a Vince Vaughn tour de force. Owen Wilson is good in his laid back persona we know so well. There are cameos aplenty and the supporting characters are more than wallpaper to the Vaughn and Wilson skits.
Vince and Owen play 2 divorce mediators who love to show up uninvited at weddings for the free food and to pick up single women. That premises is funny by itself. Add in Vaughn's hyperactive party animal we last saw in "Swingers" and Wilson's suave intellectual and it takes the comedy up a notch.
This film was bust-a-gut funny for adults without being gross. Only one bathroom joke here. It was so nice to finally see a comedy that was aimed at adults and not 12 year old boys. But that doesn't mean 12 year old boys were ignored - there is some good looking women topless through out the film.
Rachel McAdams plays Claire, Owen's love interest. She is the most normal of the Cleary clan. Isla Fisher's, who chews up scenes just like Vaughn, plays the spoiled crazy sister Gloria Cleary. Keir O'Donnell as Todd Cleary is the disaffected artist loner of the family and Ellen Albertini Dow plays Grandma Mary Cleary, who has some inappropriate things to say about Eleanor Roosevelt and Todd.
While Christopher Walken plays it pretty straight as Secretary Cleary, Jane Seymour plays against type as Kathleen Cleary a sex starved MILF. In one scene where she is coming on to Owen Wilson I thought to myself "Dr. Quinn!!!" and her inappropriate comments to Owen during the film were shockingly funny.
2nd place to Vaughn for best performance has to go to Sack Lodge, played by Bradley Cooper. Cooper walks the fine line of being an ass and being over the top. He played a misogynist environmentalist who liked to hunt. That was humorous because most would think an environmentalist to be sweet and poetic all the time. Not Cooper and that was fun to watch.
The story was predictable but the comedy allowed me to ignore that. The film runs about 2 hours and while it does start to drag toward the end, the final scenes allow it to end on a high note.
Vaughn and Wilson were the best when they bickered but Vaughn still had the best lines and best gags. Vince should get some awards out of his performance and with dearth of good movies this year he should not have too much trouble. I dare even suggest an Oscar. His performance reminded me of Kevin Kline in "A Fish Called Wanda" and Kline won an Oscar.