Wiseguy Rapport Sharpened for Funny, Post-Frat House Comedy With an Original Premise

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2006)

A great premise drives a hybrid comedy that mixes the "buddy" picture with "American Pie" hijinks and more conventional romantic comedy elements. It doesn't always work, but director David Dobkin and co-screenwriters Steve Faber and Bob Fisher get a lot of mileage out of the idea of two horndog divorce lawyers who crash weddings in their native D.C. area to lure sexually available women. Originating from a Big Kahuna of wedding crashing (who shows up late in the movie to offer an updated approach), the strategy of the partners in crime, John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey, is to abide by their incessant rulebook and show up at events like they were invited and be prepared to present themselves with creatively concocted bios as tangible connections to either the bride or the groom.
It all sounds like a prime opportunity for tasteless, vulgar humor and at various points, it is, but the film can also be surprisingly clever and even insightful. The set-up is actually more interesting than the ensuing plot, which relies much more on convention as it focuses on the high-profile nuptials of a US senator's daughter and the predictable romantic complications therein. As the smoother of the two, Owen Wilson plays John with his trademark glibness and laid-back manner. In romancing the senator's middle daughter Claire, he even manages to eke out sincerity in measured doses, although he lacks the gravitas to be a truly effective romantic lead. As Jeremy, whether egging John about his exposure to the available breasts of the senator's wife, fending off the advances of Claire's sister and brother, or confessing profusely to a somewhat titillated minister, Vince Vaughn is a motor-mouthed riot, as he suffers an escalating number of indignities in order to keep up the guises while John woos Claire. Together, they are like a post-frat house version of Crosby and Hope in one of their Road movies.
Christopher Walken plays the strait-laced senator with just a hint of his potential lunacy, though I was wishing he could break free more like he does in his "Saturday Night Live" skits. In a role that begs for the effortless savvy of Joan Allen or Jean Smart, the still-beautiful Jane Seymour just seems sadly misused as his wife. The current "it" girl, Rachel McAdams has the presence of mind and spirit to make more of the lackluster role of romantically confused Claire than there really is, though it's Isla Fisher who steals her scenes with abandon as Claire's alternately smitten and psychotic baby sister Gloria. Truth be told, the film starts to drag in the home stretch as it takes its time toward the inevitable conclusion, but the cleverly tasteless take on funerals is a nice jab. Regardless, Wilson and especially Vaughn, with his non-stop stream-of-consciousness wit, generate enough goodwill and laughs to compensate for the occasional lapses along the way.
The "Uncorked" DVD package is somewhat disappointing. It contains two versions of the film, the original theatrical one and another billed as "uncorked", though the difference amounts to a few additional moments and lines here and there. There are two commentary tracks  an informative albeit by-the-numbers one by Dobkin and a looser though rather lazy and low-key one by Wilson and Vaughn. Neither is essential. There are four deleted scenes, including a karaoke scene with the two guys endlessly singing Nena's "99 Luftballoons". The extras just prove that the final film was edited correctly when it was released.