Wedding Crashers (2005)

Starring: Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams, Bradley Cooper, Isla Fisher, Will Ferrell, and Jane Seymour, with cameos from John McCain and James Carville
Grade: Classic

Wedding Crashers is one of those rare movies I have no problem watching every time it’s on TV.

Summary

In Washington D.C., John Beckwith (Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vaughn) are best friends and divorce mediators. After finishing up with their two most recent clients (Dwight Yoakam and Rebecca De Mornay), Jeremy has his secretary Janice bring a sleeping bag into his office because for John’s birthday every year, he sleeps at his house. When they were young kids, John’s parents died in an accident a month before his birthday, so Jeremy made it a promise every year since to be with him on that day. This is how close they are. After hearing this story, Janice offers to introduce Jeremy to a woman she knows, but Jeremy has an elaborate explanation about why he doesn’t like dating. He’s all about sleeping around though. Once Janice leaves, he has John come into his office to gameplan: It’s wedding season! They have 17 coming up. Through one of the most high-spirited, fun montages you’ll ever witness, John and Jeremy go through the season, partying and having sex with every hot, eligible woman under the sun. Using fake aliases and backstories each time, they have an intricate system to pick up these women, and it works.

After another successful season, Jeremy propositions John with just one more wedding. It’s for one of the daughters of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, William Cleary (Walken). John isn’t feeling it because he’s exhausted from the season. Jeremy makes him feel guilty by reminding him of the godfather of crashing weddings in Chazz Reinhold (Ferrell), a guy who passed on the idea and rules to them (even though he may be a little crazy). When adding this may be the greatest crash of all time, John is intrigued. He agrees to do it as long as their planning for it is impeccable. At the wedding, Jeremy preps John with articles about Cleary’s economic policies, sailing terms, and a typed-out index on the family members. As John scans the scene, he notices one of Cleary’s other daughters Claire (McAdams). For their backstory, John and Jeremy agree to be brothers who are venture capitalists from New Hampshire.

At the ceremony, Jeremy calls dibs on Gloria (Fisher), the third sister. John’s cool with it because he has his eyes on Claire. During the cocktail hour, John puts his gifts with the others and uses it as an opportunity to talk to Claire who’s doing the same. He impresses her by pointing out how he can guess every gift. The conversation is playful, and you can tell he made an impression once she leaves with her mother Kathleen (Seymour). Meanwhile, Jeremy makes balloon animals for the kids, getting the attention of Gloria. On the dance floor, John dances with a little girl and gets Claire’s attention by doing so. Unfortunately, Kathleen interrupts to dance with John. As Jeremy scores a dance with Gloria, Secretary Cleary takes notice. Once the dance is over, John asks Kathleen about her marriage to Secretary Cleary. It’s been a thirty-year marriage but as she eyes him up and down, she notes they’ve been faithful for only two of them. Despite being a little weirded out, John goes over to introduce himself to Secretary Cleary. Pointing out how he “read” his position paper on economic expansion in Micronesia and how he read it while “sailing on his boat to Bermuda”, Secretary Cleary starts eating it up. Loving that John is agreeing to everything he’s saying, Secretary Cleary invites him to the deck to smoke some cigars. At the same time, Jeremy’s “sad backstory” shtick is working with Gloria.

Following this, Claire interrupts John and Secretary Cleary to have her father talk to Christina, the daughter who’s getting married. This allows for Claire to talk to John a bit more. They talk about her upcoming speech at the reception, so she shows him what she wrote. John doesn’t think her joke will go over well and tells her to say something from the heart, but she doesn’t believe him and goes through with it anyway.

During the speech later on, John is right. The sound of crickets was evident. Wondering what to do mid-speech, she makes eye contact with John, and he points to his heart. This is enough for her to recover and make a heartwarming and simple speech that saves the day. While this is going on, Jeremy has sex with Gloria just outside of the reception on the shore of the beach, but he finds out that Gloria is a virgin. To Jeremy’s shock, she thinks they’re in love. He’s screwed. Back at the reception, Claire thanks John, but they are interrupted by Sack (Cooper), Claire’s fiancé that John did not know about. Jeremy runs over to John to tell him he has a “Stage 5 Clinger”, and it’s time for them to go. John refuses because he needs more time to get to Claire. As Jeremy is panic-explaining how Gloria has gone nuts, Gloria comes over to invite the both of them to the Cleary’s place off the shore because they’re going there after the wedding to party for the weekend. Jeremy tries to come up with every excuse possible to say they can’t go, but John, seeing this as an “overtime” opportunity to get to Claire, agrees to it. After Gloria leaves to tell her father, Jeremy and John argue, with Jeremy telling him there is no overtime period. John counters with the example of the Chang wedding three years ago. They continue to argue, especially because Jeremy is convinced that Secretary Cleary doesn’t like him because he went crazy with his moves on the dance floor. Gloria comes back, after pouting and making a bit of a scene with her father and tells them they can both come.

Now, a weekend of shenanigans will commence. What John doesn’t realize is that Sack is a much bigger adversary than he anticipated.

My Thoughts:

Loud, brash, outrageously quotable, and effortlessly rewatchable, Wedding Crashers is legitimately one of the funniest movies ever. It needs to be said that when the American Film Institute finally revamps their 100 Years… 100 Laughs list, Wedding Crashers deserves to be near the top of the list. If it’s not, then the list is an absolute fucking sham.

Let’s start off with the obvious. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are electric. I can confidently say they are two of the most well-matched comedic duos in recent memory. Their chemistry and comic timing are undeniable. They played off each other to perfection and their banter and riffing was so well done, you’d think they were a vaudeville act from the 20s that practiced a nightly routine together. This is all-time level chemistry that casting directors can only dream of. Actually, I’m still mad they never tried to keep this momentum going and cranked out a few more films these two could star together in.

It’s too bad they don’t release films as fast as they did in the 1930s and 1940s. Back then, if they had a formula of stars that worked, they’d be thrown together in a heap of films. The Internship wasn’t enough! I want more of these two bouncing off each other, hilariously throwing back quip after quip, arguing in-between misadventures. They had huge potential. I’m not messing around when I say these two had Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy-like potential. They are that good in Wedding Crashers. Sure, they share the screen in other films, but when the spotlight is on them together, they’re on a tier among the greats.

*It’s worth mentioning that this film has the best opening 15 minutes to any movie I’ve ever seen. When you start out that hot, you know you’re cooking with gas.*

I love the premise. Crashing weddings looks like so much damn fun, especially with the way these two do it. Hell, I’d do it if social media wouldn’t blow my cover. I love how they make it sound like an intricate practice close to an art form. They have rules that legitimately make sense and never contradict each other, the names and backstories they come up with are so well researched they can easily pass off as family or friends to any wedding they go, and as ridiculous as it may seem, it does look like this would work. When Jeremy talks about crashing weddings as a legacy passed down from Chazz Reinhold, you can see how serious they both take this strategized look into partying and hooking up with strangers. It’s wonderful to watch unfold. Some may look at the humor and style of our two leads as sophomoric, vulgar, or immature, but you have to look past the surface. First of all, this style is still funny to mainstream audiences. There’s a reason “The Frat Pack” dominated the comedy genre in the 2000s. Besides this, Wedding Crashers has a genuine story that bypasses the humor some may not like (some would call these people prudes to the highest degree).

This movie isn’t just about two immature guys fucking around for two hours. John and Jeremy open the film still in their bachelor ways, but they are very close to taking the next step in their lives. They just don’t realize it until the moment hits them. Up until now, it was never about relationships. It was all about getting women and moving on. It makes sense too. These guys are divorce mediators after all. Obviously, casual sex to them makes the most sense at this moment in time. When it is time to grow up, they will. Jeremy is especially confident about this, saying “You’ll look back on this and laugh and say we were young and stupid, a couple of dumb kids running around”. The problem however, as many men try to figure out, is knowing when the time is to “grow up”. Truthfully, we never know when and even when we do, we don’t necessarily jump to accept it. Why should we? We feel good, and we’re still having fun. Why slow down? After the opening sequence, John and Jeremy toast to another great wedding season, and John poses the question first, especially after his last hookup found out he was full of shit and called him out on it. This is where we see the differences between the two starting to seep through the cracks. After Jeremy mentions the “young kids having fun” comment, we get the telling response from John. He smiles halfheartedly but admits, “We’re not that young”.

It was such a simple line, but I loved the way it was delivered by Wilson. It’s as if he’s questioning everything without outright saying it. Is our prime over? Should we stop doing this? Is it time to grow up? I couldn’t think of a better dialogue exchange to set up the rest of the film but also explain the internal questioning every man has to ask himself at a certain age. This is the genius of Wedding Crashers that I don’t feel gets enough recognition. It’s not just a great comedy, it’s a complete movie through and through. This exchange defines the film and watching our characters flip flop on the sides they take on it is incredibly entertaining, giving us a wonderfully constructed story. Plus, having John turn sides in his depressive state gives us one of the funniest and most memorable scenes in the film: the reveal of the legendary Chazz, played by Will Ferrell at a time when he was untouchable.

We also get a phenomenal supporting cast. Bradley Cooper is hysterically detestable as the full-of-shit douchebag fiancé of innocent sweetheart Claire, played by the always lovely Rachel McAdams. Usually, people would point to the moment John sees Claire for the first time as cheesy because the music signals it as a “love at first sight” moment, but with the warm presence Adams has with just a smile on camera, I get it. I can see it wholeheartedly. She’s the one you want to end up with. I’d change my ways too John. When you combine this with the always unique Christopher Walken playing the patriarch of the powerful Cleary family, an unhinged Isla Fisher, and a thoroughly entertaining narrative from start to finish, you get an unforgettable comic experience. There are so many scenes in this film that not only will have you laugh out loud, but you’ll endlessly quote until you die. From the quail hunting scene to the dinner scene, to the John/Kathleen encounter, to the motorboat comment, to Todd trapping Jeremy, I’m telling you this is an absolute classic.

Wedding Crashers is to the 2000s what Caddyshack was for comedy in the 80s.

Legendary.

Fun Fact: Isla Fisher won her role over Shannon Elizabeth and Anna Paquin. New Line Cinema wanted someone like Burt Reynolds in the role of Secretary Cleary, but director David Dobkin was the one that wanted Walken. If Will Ferrell wasn’t available for the iconic role of Chazz, Nicolas Cage was apparently Dobkin’s backup. This would’ve been nuts!