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Wedding comedies: is there any possibility, improbable and relatable, new and old alike, that they won’t pose and pilfer in the hunt for humour? Brides with cold feet, best friends fighting over clashing ceremonies, perpetual bridesmaids, uninvited guests, marriages of convenience, drunken exchanges of vows, dating experts, bachelor party shenanigans, family tensions, newlywed disharmony and more have furnished many a film already, with the list of on-theme titles lengthy. Now comes the next scenario, telling of a lonely groom needing a best man for hire ten days prior to saying “I do”.
Doug Harris (Josh Gad, Wish I Was Here) has won the heart of the woman of his dreams, Gretchen (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, TV’s The Big Bang Theory); however their plans for the big day are threatened by more than the usual hitch. Dedicated to his work, and spending what spare time he has with his betrothed and beloved, the socially inept Doug doesn’t have a circle of friends to fill out the wedding party. In fact, he doesn’t have anyone, but he’s too embarrassed – and insecure about his mis-match with his bride-to-be – to admit it. A few lies and thousands of dollars later, he has enlisted the services of smooth-talking Jimmy Callahan (Kevin Hart, Ride Along), a professional specialising in pretending to be best buddies with crony-less men. A rag-tag gang of seven other strange misfits are also brought in to pose as groomsmen.
Thus stumbles along The Wedding Ringer, a cynical premise about superficiality and disconnection saddled with sentimental life lessons about accepting yourself and seeking all things genuine. Accordingly, reading from the standard playbook and favouring the expected hackneyed elements, the situations that result are hardly difficult to predict. Awkward preparations and pre-ceremony get-togethers are complicated by a host of friends and family, including a flamboyant wedding planner (Ignacio Serricchio, The Young and the Restless), inappropriate father-in-law (Ken Howard, The Judge), kooky grandmother (Cloris Leachman, Raising Hope), and warmly wary maid-of-honour (Olivia Thirlby, Dredd). A bond springs from Doug and Jimmy’s shared subterfuge, growing during the raucous bachelor party and other gross-out antics required to pass off the wildly varying ring-ins as lifelong chums.
Alas, as The Break-Up writers Jeremy Garelick and Jay Lavender turn director and co-scribe, the rampant adherence to formula doesn’t end there. As many wedding comedies do, the film justifies its storyline in the usual rendering of a demanding, status-obsessed woman contrasting with a nerdish nice guy. That the script was reportedly first written back in 2001 and languished in development since might explain the dire material, but it doesn’t excuse the cartoonish manner in which everything is executed. While terrible gender stereotypes aren’t the only supposed source of laughs or drama, the bulk of the feature’s existence as a showcase for Hart – a talented performer and a distinctive presence poorly-served by odd-couple buddy comedies – doesn’t improve matters.
Add ill-fitting visual nods to the likes of E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and Speed as the height of the feature’s unremarkable style, and the wallowing in derivation only continues. That the funniest joke stems from the best-known role of one of the movie’s supporting players further shows the coasting along that the film is content with, as does time wasted in a young-versus-old football grudge match. Indeed, when it isn’t borrowing liberally from similar efforts or lazily plodding along based on cast appearances, The Wedding Ringer is just cobbling together whatever other familiar aspects it can: the tired, trite, uninspired and over-the-top chief among them.
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
The Wedding Ringer
Director: Jeremy Garelick
USA, 2015, 101 mins
Release date: January 22
Distributor: Sony
Rated: MA
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