Film review: Wedding Crashers

I laughed, oh did I laugh. So much so, I cried too. Wedding Crashers could have been a shocking buddy movie, but the writing, the comedic performances and the simple concept, make this my favorite comedy of the year*.

* Let me clarify. Hitch was my favorite comedy movie of the year, but now this is. In the same way Hitch was ever-so-slightly a chick flick, but guys really liked it, this is ever-so-slighty a guy flick, but chicks will really like it, though perhaps not quite in the same side-splitting, rolling on the floor, trying not to cry kind of a way.

Plot

Divorce mediators John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) are business partners and longtime friends who share a strange hobby, crashing parties. Of course, it depends on the time of year, in winter, it is Christmas parties, in the spring, it's weddings!

"Which is your favorite season?" says John; "Christmas or Wedding? Christmas or Wedding?"

"Wedding!!!!"

So it goes on. With intricate planning of back stories, the pair crash Jewish, Itaian, Irish, Chinese, even Hindu weddings, always with an answer for that question of "And you areÉ.?

Wedding crashing has rules, handed down from one generation to the next :

"Invites are for loosers"
"Make sure she's single"
"Never use your real name"
"Dance like you mean it"
"Free drinks, why not?"
"If you can't cryÉfake it!"
"Never leave a fellow crasher behind"

Though a callidescope of parties, we glimpse the whirlwind nature of wedding crashing. John and Jeremy aren't just out on the make, though the girls are their ultimate goal. They are sympthetic characters. Being the life of the party attracts the women, but these guys really do love the food, the bands, entertaining the kids and dressing up in their suits. Not only are they Wedding Crashers, they are Wedding experts.

John is starting to realise that that he has enough of this lifestyle. Afterall, he and Jeremy aren't in their twenties anymore and they are still single.

At the end of the long wedding season, Jeremy runs into Johns' office full of enthusiasm and holding the newspaper. The daughter of the Treasury Secretary (Christopher Walken) and he wife (Jane Seymor) is getting married in what is sure to be the social event of the year. No just the last event of the season, it is sure to be the ultimate crashing challenge.

John takes a fair amount of persuasion to do it, but once agreed, it is all or nothing.

After successfully infiltraiting the lavish wedding, John and Jeremy soon set their sights on the two remaining single daughters of the Treasury Secretay, Claire (Rachel McAdams) and Gloria (Isla Fisher).

Jeremy works his gameplan to perfection and has soon seduced Gloria, but John's gameplan is interrupted when Claires' boyfriend Zack (Bradley Cooper), a pompos Ivy leagueer and basic thug, cuts in.

John has fallen hard for Claire. Jeremy is desperate to get away from Gloria. John convinces Jeremy to bend the crashing rules to accept an invitation to an extended weekend party at the Cleary family home.

Now, the fun really begins and I shall stop telling you what is going on as the ins and outs of this film are delightfull. Jane Seymor has a marvellous scene with Owen Wilson and there are many moments you want to burry your head in the shoulder of the person next to you to stop laughing too loudly.

Review rating

I liked Wedding Crashers a lot. My sides hurt from laughing. 9/10.