The Wedding Crashers

B+

This was a movie I had heard good things about when it came out, but never got around to seeing. This movie is a cut above the American Pie series, but still can't shake it's Porky's roots. The story centers around two 30-ish guys who like to go to weddings posing as relatives or family friends, figuring their chances of hooking up with women are greater at weddings as the single women's guards are down and they're caught up in the magic of matrimony and open bars. But in pretty quick order that setup is abandoned after one of the guys decides he's really had enough and falls for a girl pretty hard. That part of the story is kind of weak and there is an unnecessary "boy loses girl" sequence towards the end that does nothing but add time to the movie.

The fun comes from watching the techniques the two guys have honed to a razor sharp edge to become the life of a wedding reception (any wedding reception: they are equally at home at Jewish, Chinese, or Italian weddings) and then have the girl of their choice sleep with them. There are a host of different unbelievable template stories and rules to be followed, all passed down from an unseen mentor wedding crasher. But executed properly, the techniques will work every time. Vince Vaughn provides most of the comedy as he rattles absurdities and vulgarisms a mile a minute without a lick of mixed feelings over ethics. Owen Wilson is his slower-talking foil with a heart. Vaughn takes it to a surreal but hilarious crescendo when interrogating Wilson about an encounter with a hot mom (played by Dr. Quinn, Jane Seymour!). Chrisopher Walken is like icing on the cake as the father of the crashers' targets.

Anyway, this was a better movie than I expected, with good writing and two great central characters who would probably become even funnier on repeated viewings. It's still rough around the edges, so I don't feel like I can give it an A, so how about a B+?

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