Starring: Kevin Hart, Josh Gadd, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Jorge Garcia, Dan Gill, Ken Howard, Chloris Leachman, Jenefer Lewis, Mimi Rogers, Olivia Thirlby
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Runtime: 101 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2015
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It is not as if they have not been enough films about weddings: Wedding Planet, Wedding Singer, Wedding, Wedding Crashers, Big Wedding, American Wedding, Four Weddings and a Funeral… So, here is another.
This is a star vehicle for Kevin Hart, a short, African-American comedian, with unbelievable rapid delivery, a whole stack of double takes and patter that get him into all kinds of trouble as well is out of all kinds of trouble. Hart is an acquired taste, irritating in Ride Along, almost unbearable in the remake of About Last Night. Actually, in The Wedding Ringer, on the whole, he or is rather good.
Doug (Josh Gadd) is a rather big lump of a man, bespectacled, not a prospect for a quick marriage to a glamorous wife. But, here he is engaged to Gretchen (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) whose main aim in life seems to be to get married, have something of an up-market, extravagant wedding ceremony and wedding breakfast. And her whole family are right behind her, her concerned mother, her homophobic football-loving husband, and grandma (Chloris Leachman) who, at one stage of a family dinner, begins to go up in flames.
The wedding planner knows that Doug has no friends and no best man. He refers him to Jimmy (Kevin Hart) who runs a company to find best men as well as groomsmen. We see him in operation, very smooth talking, much appreciated, but only doing the work as business and not wanting to have any personal friendships or attachments afterwards.
Most of the film is about his setting up Doug with a best man, himself, and the oddest-looking lot of groomsmen, who all polish up rather better than expected, and providing Doug with a past history of extraordinary exploits including skydiving, climbing mountains in Patagonia…
When Doug and Jimmy go to the family dinner, the family is under the impression that Jimmy is a priest, not only a priest, but a military chaplain, providing opportunity for lots of doubletalk, improvisation, and, something of a compliment to priests and expectations of them, often credible enough, even to the wedding ceremony.
Eventually the friends are prepared with their back stories, rehearse them, have their own particular acts for when the going goes badly. They do take Doug for a night on the town, which liberates him (although his mother had him do dancing lessons when he was young and he excels at this), but he is the victim of the kind of joke that was funny in There’s Something About Mary, this time with a tenacious dog.
There is a touch of suspense throughout: will Gretchen and the family cotton on to what is happening, will the wedding go ahead, will Doug want to tell the truth? All these questions are answered, and Doug seems to be the better man for the whole experience – mainly liberated from his inhibitions.
Of course, there are some crass jokes, but fewer than usual and there are more amusing moments than might be expected.
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