Wedding Crashers

Wedding Crashers absolutely did not disappoint, but was in fact, uproariously entertaining. And yes, while Vince Vaughn portrays a character almost identical to every other character he ever plays, it is still funny as hell when the guy launches into one of his token fast-talking rants.

John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn), as we know from the title of the movie and the katrillion or so previews, have a long and cherished tradition of crashing weddings in that most noble of ambitions to sleep with as many beautiful women as possible. They have all sorts of tricks, one-liners, and an enormous set of rules by which they operate in order to achieve this goal, such as “never commit to knowing a relative without knowing if he/she is dead,” or “never leave a fellow crasher behind,” etc... They have trusty one-liners, foolproof tactics like dancing with the cute little flower girl, and they are so experienced with weddings that they make bets on which reading from the bible will be used during the ceremony. At the end of a five-minute musical montage showing John and Jeremy happily engaging in their well-practiced schemes, we see that Owen Wilson’s character is starting to develop and inkling of a conscience—quite an unfortunate turn of events for their line of work. Jeremy convinces him to attend an upcoming high-society wedding held by a political big-wig, Secretary Cleary (Christopher Walken), and it just so happens that when John catches his first glimpse of one of Secretary Cleary’s beautiful daughters, Claire (Rachel McAdams), he falls immediately in love—apparently never having seen a beautiful woman before or something. Jeremy, meanwhile, pegs another beautiful Cleary daughter, Gloria, as his next conquest, realizing too late that she is “a stage 5 virgin clinger.” In the interest of adding more situations for Vince to be tortured under Gloria’s psychotic full-court press, John and Jeremy are invited to spend the weekend at the Cleary family estate, where John attempts to steal Claire away from her competitive asshole boyfriend, who is clearly insane.

The list of things that happen to poor Vince as he is staying at the Cleary family mansion are numerous and exceptionally hilarious, particularly a dinner scene where I could hardly hear the dialogue over the uproarious laughter in the audience. It was fantastic, and I appreciated Vaughn being so adept as the epicenter of misfortune. He has many of his rapid fire diatribes, and each one was no less entertaining than the others as he grows more and more agitated while the weekend of hell continues. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are expertly paired and play off each other very well, as Wilson allows Vaughn to have the spotlight without making him the cornerstone of the movie’s humor. There is an awesome cameo toward the end, just as I worried that the movie was never going to actually go anywhere, and I couldn’t imagine a better vehicle for Wilson to achieve his self-revelation than this particular person. It simply works beautifully, just as everything else prior to it.

Overall, I thought this movie was extremely well-executed, and I highly recommend that you see it if you have the chance. It’s always nice to see a comedy that consistently makes you laugh out loud throughout the entire duration of the film, constantly surprising you with well-written dialogue and actors that are adept in making the material funny. I definitely, definitely recommend Wedding Crashers.