There’ve been a lot of bromantic comedies over the years and while Jeremy Garelick’s The Wedding Ringer is not going to win any originality awards, Kevin Hart’s latest comedic offering might just manage to surprise you a little, in that it’s not as bad as some of its predecessors. Well, at least not all of its 101 minutes, with the occasional hilarious moment enough to keep the audience satisfied. Just try to avoid the trailer for this one – as it offers up the entire plot and every single funny moment in it. No matter how few.
The film follows Doug Harris (Josh Gad) who is planning the wedding of a lifetime with the girl of his dreams (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) but is seriously lacking in the friends department and needs to find a best man and seven groomsmen in time for the wedding in less than two weeks. He enlists the help of Jimmy Callahan (Kevin Hart) who owns a company that provides best men for socially challenged men but even Jimmy is a little concerned with the never before attempted ‘Golden Tux’ of wedding challenges – to try and muster up eight believable ‘friends’ for Doug. Hilarity ensues and as they try to pull off this charade, with both Doug and Jimmy realising their lives aren’t what they seem…
There were still a lot of ups and downs in this film, which tries to be too many things at once while never really breaking out of the template of on-screen brotherly love, that has increasingly taken over our screens in the past few years. Yes, there are some hilarious, and at times obscene moments, which you can’t help but laugh at, and it is refreshing that the film doesn’t rely solely on the style of slapstick pain or humiliation ‘comedy’ that has become a staple of this kind of film (all of Ben Stiller’s back catalogue springs to mind). However, the scenes and characters are predictable: the sociopath father (Ken Howard) who’s got it in for his new son in law and will pound him on the football pitch, not to mention the cheesy women who are nothing more than mere plot points. It’s all about the bromance after all. But while the premise is pretty ludicrous, if you are able to suspend your disbelief and get on board with the relationship between Doug and Jimmy, you’ll find positives, as it’s the best thing about this film (apart from the fantastic Olivia Thirlby who plays the bride’s sister Alison Palmer – a witty, well-written character and the most well-rounded and believable from the film).
But is there a moral to the story? Why yes and unfortunately it’s going to be hammered home in many awful emotional scenes that are not believably written or even well written for that matter, which feel like they’ve been edited in last minute to add some depth, but not before some standard antisocial antics and humiliation at a bachelor party take place where men bond and shout things like ‘don’t be a little girl’, at each other because well, that’s a terrible insult isn’t it? Did we mention Olivia Thirlby’s the best thing about this film?
