Wedding Crashers

—Overview
—Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections

Wedding Crashers starts off with a great premise, degenerates into raunchy American Pie/Meet the Parents shtick, finally resorts to romantic comedy clichés, and for the most part, I loved it. Wilson and Vaughn, each playing off his own well-established movie (and public) persona, hold this film together enough to make it worth a watch.

[Beware of the Spoilers!]

As previews have made abundantly clear, what you have here are two “guy’s guys.� Guys who arrive, uninvited, at wedding after wedding, choose back-stories, fake names, female targets, and then, with the words “I’m gonna get drunk� on their lips, rush in for the “kill.� It sounds fun, it looks fun, and for a while—years, according to the story—it is fun. But of course, we join the boys not long before Wilson’s character begins to tire of this empty ritual, and starts to question the whole endeavor.

With Vaughn’s prompting, the boys crash one more wedding. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s at this wedding that Wilson meets a girl (Rachel McAdams) that he’s legitimately interested in. Not as a conquest, but as a person. As someone, perhaps, to love. The girl’s father (Christopher Walken), it turns out, is the Treasury Secretary, but that doesn’t stop Wilson from getting himself and Vaughn—who has already “scored� with the Secretary’s other daughter—invited to the family’s estate for the weekend, fake names and back-stories in tow.

Hilarity ensues, McAdams is engaged to a real jerk, Wilson falls for her, the boys have their cover blown, Vaughn ends up with the sister, Wilson is saved from his suicidal grief over losing the girl by a revelation brought on by Will Ferrell (!), and it all culminates with that obligatory, romantic comedy “rush to the altar� scene, and a happy ending.

As a story, the movie works, though it is certainly formulaic. With romantic comedies, however, I think the formula is expected, and even appreciated when done right. This movie does do it right—even giving an on-screen nod to the formula when Wilson asks if it’d be cliché to kiss McAdams at the end of the “rush to the altar� scene. It is, but that’s okay. The performances of the actors are also a plus. Wilson makes a great straight-man, Vaughn has hilarious frat-boy appeal, and Christopher Walken does a fine job of being intimidating, believable, and funny—a cooler, more rounded version of DiNero’s Jack Byrnes. There are plenty of memorable, one-liner-type moments in this film. Lots of humorous, though sometimes stereotypical, insight into how men are, and how women are. Many, many laughs.

The main weakness of the film has to do with how intent the filmmakers were on showing a full range of change in Wilson’s character. Vaughn’s character changes, but it’s a simple change—and one we aren’t as invested in because Vaughn is the movie’s main source of comic relief, making him and his relationships more ridiculous. But with Wilson, there are no less than four major shifts in character, and that kind of thing takes lots of screen time. It’s great to have such a dynamic character, and it does fit with the story, but watching it flesh-out gives the movie a start-stop quality, and makes it about fifteen minutes too long.

But these character changes, though tedious, also facilitate some of Wedding Crashers’ most significant spiritual insights: using other people is vacuous, we all need someone to love us, there’s a sense of destiny about those “chance� connections that people make with each other, everything in moderation. Granted, none of these are staggering insights, and most of them are standard romantic comedy fare, but the difference is that the insights here are aimed at guys. A romantic comedy, typically, is aimed more towards women—featuring character and story types that appeal, traditionally, to women. But this movie, which will likely appeal to guys more, will hopefully actually speak its positive messages to real-life womanizers, users, and the like.

All told, this is a fun movie. The shock-value comedy will turn-off some viewers, but it’s a great date-movie choice for those who want to see a true, appeal-to-the-guys comedy, with chick-flick sensibilities—for me, only How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days has come this close in the past. And if you know any real-life, party-boy “wedding crashers,� invite them to see this . . . it may just get them to consider the error of their ways.

—Overview
—Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections