The Wedding Crashers by Steve Faber and Bob
Fisher
The Wedding
Crashers is not one of the Best 100 Comedies ever made, but it is a pleasant, entertaining
feature.
Owen Wilson
as John Beckwith, Vince Vaughn in the role of Jeremy Grey, the titan Cristopher
Walken as Secretary Cleary, Rachel McAdams in the role of the daughter of the
latter, and Claire Cleary have many very good moments.
Bradley Cooper
has an unusual role here, he is the obnoxious, almost repellent Sack Lodge,
while Will Ferrell- always radiant- has a brief appearance, which is enough to
provoke about half of the laughs of the film.
John and
Jeremy are the men from the title, who take advantage of weddings, with their
atmosphere of celebration, strong emotions, warmth, closeness, longing, tenderness,
romance to…have sex.
Chazz Reinhold
aka Will Ferrell has another strategy, he attends funerals- in a way, reminding
one of the classic Harold and Maude, where Harold has a habit of staging false
suicides and attending obsequies, where he meets the woman who is some sixty
years older and wants to…marry her.
Chazz is present
at the burial services, because this is where people are vulnerable, emotional,
sensitive, frail, especially women and he takes advantage of their not being
aware of this- funny in this case- predator who is there to have sexual
intercourse, which, granted, may contribute to bring the grieving relatives to
some happier state.
John falls
in love with Claire, but she is in a serious relationship with the rather
loathsome, arrogant, precious, selfish Sack Lodge aka Bradley Cooper, who
states at one crucial point that, after he marries his lover, she would not be
able to have a career, do what she wants, for it is the man who is important…
In other
words, Sack is a sexist, misogynistic, retrograde, medieval macho type and his
partner has to be saved.
Talking about
the Middle Ages, there are some confrontations between the rivals that involve
physical- not figurative- clashes and punches are flying, with the advantage on
the side of the villain, who is an athlete- was he in the football team?
John helps
Claire understand better who she is and what an enormous gap, a precipice is actually
separating her from the would be husband…or maybe one should say an ocean,
given the preposterous, insensitive, self-absorbed statements made by the male
chauvinist character- or is it pig?
Meanwhile,
at the same wedding, Jeremy has sex with Gloria, who pretends to be a virgin,
but not so much in an attempt to seduce by using a preposterous statement-
although she admits she knew it is something that men find exciting.
At a later
stage, she laughs at this pretense, explains what the truth is and she keeps
fondling, massaging and ultimately masturbating the helpless Jeremy, at a large
lunch table – or was it dinner?- with father Cleary, mother, other relatives
and guest present- but unaware of what was going on under the table…
Was this amusing?
It was anyway meant to be.
Until the immense
flaws in the rotten character of Sack are exposed, he has done some
investigative work- through intermediaries- and found out about the dedication
of his competitor to Crashing Weddings and he tells this to his bride to be and
all the others in the large audience.
As it happens
in romantic comedies, it appears to be the end of the road, the elimination of
all prospects for the beaten hero, who has been unmasked and his failures
exposed.
However, this
is not the end of the game.
The inventive,
creative Wedding Crashers have some more ammunition and Jeremy is going to
marry Gloria Cleary.
Chances are
that this would be a happy ending
A comedy
must be as masterful, indeed, perfect as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb to afford to toy with Armageddon, the end of
days and this earth and project an unhappy finale, with the Doomsday Machine in
operation and about to destroy Planet Earth.
Nevertheless,
the Wedding Crashers is in a different league.
If you want
a serious, quintessential comedy, on a level with the aforementioned of Some
Like It Hot, you could try some of the comedies on the American Film Institute
list or other reputable ones of equal or better value:
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