The Wedding Ringer (2015)

January 18, 2015 7:55 AM

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.
posted by mathowie (3 comments total)

I went into this with low expectations and was surprised by a perfectly serviceable comedy about a lonely guy trying to scare up some fake grooms men for a wedding. On Rotten Tomatoes, it only scores in the low-30s, which feels unfair, I'd suspect it should be in the 50-60 range. Not great, but not awful.

I enjoyed a few laughs, I thought Kevin Hart was funny and close to his stand-up persona. Josh Gad was ok at a main comedy role and it was nice to see the movie turn into a weird Pretty Woman sort of thing between Hart and Gad after the wedding is sunk.

About the only downer was the key scene where the bride reveals she doesn't really love the groom and is just getting married for the money/status he can provide. That felt like lazy writing to just make the main female character into a "gold digger" and to be frank she was a fairly one-dimensional character that they could have given a little more depth to, it would have made her turn at the end have more impact.

Overall, not awful, and better than a lot of comedies like SNL spinoffs.
posted by mathowie at 8:03 AM on January 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

After reading the backstory of how it got made I feel strangely invested in it, so I'm glad it's not terrible. Though that article would probably make a better movie than the movie.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 3:51 PM on January 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

There was a similar movie a few years back called "I Love You, Man." Is young men not having close friends thing now?
posted by infinitewindow at 9:50 PM on January 18, 2015