Crash Smash

I watched Wedding Crashers for the first time since it opened in 2005.  It was a huge hit in its day.  Does it hold up?

The concept was original--two guys who, for years, have been crashing weddings, where they get free food and drink, and willing young women who are feeling romantic.  The plot is the old boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, but it's all in how you do it.

The boy, in this case, is Owen Wilson, in some ways an improbable romantic hero, but his off-center charm works here.  And he doesn't even see the girl until the end of the first act. In fact, that's what starts the second act.

Because the film has a problem.  We like our heroes--they're fun people, and resourceful--but they're men in their 30s who seem to be stuck in perpetual adolescence.  Which is why we get the scene where Owen Wilson tells partner Vince Vaughn that maybe it's time to stop.  So they'll go to one last big wedding.  And when Wilson sees Rachel McAdams, the bride's sister, that's when he's jolted into something different.  He keeps our sympathy, because even as he plays his tricks on her, we know this is the real things.

Meanwhile, Vaughn's got a more comic plot, going head-to-head with the other sister, played by Isla Fisher.  At first she's just another notch on his belt, but turns out to be more than his match.

The second act is the two getting deeper and deeper into their latest adventure, as they go off to stay at the home of the rich, powerful family, with Christopher Walken as the patriarch and Bradley Cooper (not well-known then) as McAdam's boyfriend.

There's a lot of fun stuff here, the most famous being--there's no nice way to say it--the crotch-rubbing-under-the-dinner-table scene.  I remember seeing this with a packed house and it tore the roof off.

Wilson and McAdams start falling for each other but then he and Vaughn are found out.  Boys loses girls and we're propelled into the third act.  And it's this final act that's the most controversial section.

For one thing, this film is long--almost two hours.  I realize in an age of Judd Apatow and the Farrelly Brothers, long comedies may not seem like a big deal, but it's hard to keep the balls in the air that long.  It's even trickier when the film is built on imposture.  Generally, once that's exposed, the air leaks out of the balloon and you want to get to the end as soon as possible.

But the film takes its time in the final act.  Some might even say it dawdles.  Maybe this is good in a way, showing it takes the characters seriously, but the high comic excitement is gone, so we get a lot of Wilson mooning around and the two friends breaking up.

Then there's a third-act surprise--in an attempt for a comic shot in the arm, we meet the original wedding crasher, played by surprise star Will Ferrell.  I don't remember his appearance being that well-loved back then (and it is a bit absurd once the film is trying to get serious), but it is something different, and has held up reasonably well.

But it sure takes us a long time to get Wilson and McAdams back together, as well as Wilson and Vaughn.  We end the film with the two couples speeding off to more adventures, but it does feel like the post-disclosure material could have been handled more effectively in half the time.

Overall, I think the film works. There's some slack, and not every idea pays off, but at its best it's got true comic momentum.  Wilson has rapport with both Vaughn and McAdams (who's never looked lovelier).  Above all, Vaughn is a comic dynamo.  If you want to see a film that shows what he can do, this is it.

There are rumors of a sequel. Bad idea.  For one thing, Wilson and Vaughn reteamed in The Internship, and seemed tired.  Would we really want to see their wedding crasher characters over a decade later?  It sounds depressing.