Wedding Crashers - movie review

I thought, for a brief moment on Sunday, that Wedding Crashers might beat Charlie & the Chocolate Factory for weekend box office. This scenario was not the case as the latter trounced the former by approximately $20 million. However, I expect Wedding Crashers to have an extended honeymoon at the cineplex - it's that kind of film.

Crashers is the tale of long-time chums John (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy (Vince Vaughn). Together, they mediate divorce by day, crash weddings by supper, bed bridesmaids by night and sip champagne to their successes by sunrise. (This rousing circle of activities is presented in an exceptional montage that occurs barely 15 minutes into the film but firmly establishes the contagious joy of the characters - I dare anyone NOT to smile during the sequence.) And really, that's all they do. But they do it together, as per the rules of crashing (apparantly there are many rules, all of which echo the frat/military/gentlemen's club credos of male friendship). Until the day of the Cleary wedding and the arrival of Claire (Rachel McAdams) and Gloria (Isla Fisher) onto the scene.

It's obvious from the advertising that Crashers is attempting to reach the comedy position of Meet the Parents. And, the leveraging of the "frat pack"aging, focus on sharp one-liners, portrayal of family lunacy and inclusion of a screen heavyweight (Christopher Walken) suggest that it could be so. But Crashers is more likely to walk the aisle laid by Hitch because, for all its wacky comedy set-ups, it is actually a romantic comedy. The film is filled with the usual tactics that drive such stories: discovery of emotion, the evil boyfriend, conflict due to poor communication, last-minute declarations at the altar, and finale kissing.

There appears to be a new breed of RomCom on screens these days - those written with the male viewpoint as the focus. I would call them ComRoms (if it didn't sound so stupid!)or rather Comic Romances. As expected from the guys, in these films the laughs are upfront and the romance is the payoff (versus the traditional "women's" version where romantic notions are primary and comedy is context). In this sense, the newer version can be more satisfying with Wedding Crashers being a bright example of working both your gut and your heart. It also upholds the less-impressive concept that all playboy hounds are true lovers at heart once they find the "right" woman, but you can willingly ignore this constuct in the face of Vaughn's impeccable monologues and Wilson's golden-boy charm.

Although the Wilson & McAdams romance is given top billing (and a long-winded and unnecessary denouement), Crashers is really Vaughn's show - and rightly so. Here the motormouth shtick works and re-asserts him as an enjoyable screen presence rather than a gimmick. Isla Fisher matches him for sheer energy and is sure to have a few men's mag covers thrown her way. In the end, and exchange between Wilson and McAdams sums up the film best:
Wilson: "True love is your soul finding its counterpoint in another..."
McAdams: "That's a little bit cheesy, but I like it."
And so too with Wedding Crashers - a bit of love, a bit of cheese, and likeable.