Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Wedding Crashers

(2005)

This one might as well have had Wait For The Video! written right into the trailers. I was skeptical going in, and it won me over within five minutes. Early on, wondering why I was smiling so much, I realized that it had jumped right in and got my feet thumping and my eyes delighted. The music is very good.

These guys crash weddings, for the partying and free food and the sentimental babes … but they also just flat out enjoy it. They have to, to fit in with no one asking embarrassing questions, but when they are tying balloon animals or dancing with grannies or little kids or just plain joining in the hilarity you can tell it’s sincere. Sure, they’re freeloading, and getting laid, but no one is being hurt, everybody’s having a ball. There is a wonderful, long montage of five different weddings of different ethnicities, and they fit right into all of them. Then it moves fairly smoothly into deeper stuff, their gradual realization that what they have really been seeking is family. That they can’t carry on like this all the time. It’s punched home with a hilarious meeting with the guy who taught them everything they know (Will Ferrell, uncredited) … who is still living with his mom and now crashes funerals. Of course, like almost all movies like this, it ends with an excruciating and unbelievable scene where everything works out okay and the bad guy gets what’s coming to him … but it’s a small price to pay for all the laughs I had.