Crashers is Cool and Classy Summer Fun

Rating: 8/10 (23 July 2005)

Aside from all of the Hollywood hogwash we've endured throughout the blazes of summer, "Wedding Crashers" falls in a class of its own, and can be welcomed as a bawdy, smart, and often tender fix on romantic antics and mostly classy comedy. Hysterical leads Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn really elevate the film's chaffing premise to grand comedic heights, with their jovial, affable chemistry, and witty deliverance of surprisingly smart one-liners. Rather than resorting to puerile scatological butts, "Crashers" offers clever romantic skylarking for sophisticated crowds, as well as classic raunchy escapades for more demure laughter, working on many comical levels. The story showcases the goofy, albeit charming Wilson- meeting and falling for the dashing and spirited Rachel Adams, who is dying for someone of Wilson's convivial nature to come along and whisk her away from a potentially imprisoning relationship, at Secretary of Treasury Christopher Walken's other daughter's wedding, which Wilson and Vaughn initially scheme to "crash". While Wilson is struggling with a growing affection for Claire Cleary which is tempering his wild-spiritedness by the day, Vince Vaughn is enduring torture of different sorts in the form of an abnormal virgin and a gay nudist art show. Eventually, you'd expect this scenario to cause a clashing between the two "invincible party animals", and you'd be right. The comedy, however, is hardly mired by Wilson and Adams' watery romance, and rather, works in between Wilson's pontifications of "the special somebody" and antique bike venturing along the beach, and you're left with a sweet and slushy romantic comedy. The laughs are pretty consistent throughout, as there always seems to be some comical edge in between inevitable sappiness. You'll have one particularly syrupy scene with Wilson and Adams wandering the hallways "searching the night for one another", immediately followed by Vince Vaughn strapped to a bed in a not-so-pleasant hysterical episode. It's comfortably tender as well as brassily campy, and overcomes many platitudes with its nonstop charms and innuendos. Wilson and Vaughn are perhaps the perfect comedic team, and are totally believable as the shrewd and quirky chick magnets they expertly play. The concept of "one night stands" has never been funnier, and the idea they are game players in "bagging babes" with their "rules of conduct" tunes the comedy quite affably, resulting in a crafty smartness that is often AWOL in other farcical fluff. "Crashers" cruises with charming, jovial, and surprisingly sharp dialog and humor, cool and whimsical characters, and amusing scenarios that provide top of the line comedy for just about any crowd in search of something refreshingly funny to weather down the blazes of the dog days of summer. Wilson and Vaughn are a real comic treat, and "Wedding Crashers" is one terrifically funny showcase of their synergistic savvies. Here's something rare: it's a comedy where you needn't check your brain at the door to have a laughingly good time, while also inviting you to lighten up and enjoy its routinely hilarious antics. ***1/2 out of ****