The Wedding Ringer

The Wedding Ringer

*

Reviewed by: Angus Wolfe Murray

At a time when films are queuing up for cinema releases in the UK it seems incomprehensible that regurgitated rhubarb should be given preference over homemade pie-and-mash. Multiplex fodder, such as this, is aimed at shopping mall doo-waps where anything more sophisticated than a fart joke is outlawed.

The Wedding Ringer is not The Wedding Singer. It's a vehicle for Kevin Hart, a pint-sized motormouth in the tradition of early Eddie Murphy. Add the other staple of modern Hollywood comedy, the overweight nerd, and the you have the ingredients for disaster.

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Weddings are expressions of vulgarity in the States. Entire industries feed off them - planners, dressmakers, caterers, designers, gays. They are more about parental status than the happy-or-not couple.

Bic (Hart) runs a business providing best men for grooms who don't have friends. It's a skill, a confidence trick. In Doug's (Josh Gad) case it goes further. He's marrying Gretchen (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) because she's beautiful and he's not and he can't believe his luck. Trouble is he has no best man and no groomsmen (ushers). Bic has to provide the lot - i.e a bunch of wasters and ex-cons, with himself in the talky-talky role of Doug's college bud.

What sounds like potential for inspired mayhem is painfully unimaginative. To call it Hartless would be unfair because he tries to beat the banality of the script with raw energy and big teeth. Doug bumbles. That's his role, ineffectual and unattractive, a performance that puts the flab into Gad

Even Friday night revelers might have difficulties with this. It doesn't go far enough and where it does go you don't want to be

Reviewed on: 11 Feb 2015
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Two weeks shy of his wedding, a socially awkward guy enters into a charade by hiring the owner of a company that provides best men for grooms in need.
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Director: Jeremy Garelick

Writer: Jeremy Garelick, Jay Lavender

Starring: Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Ken Howard, Mimi Rogers, Cloris Leachman, Olivia Thirlby, Affion Crockett, Jorge Garcia, Dan Gill, Corey Holcomb, Colin Kane, Jenifer Lewis, Alan Ritchson, Aaron Takahashi

Year: 2015

Runtime: 101 minutes

BBFC: 15 - Age Restricted

Country: US

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