The Wedding Ringer (2015)

Elevator Pitch: Doug, a very rich but lonely tax lawyer, is to be married to Gretchen daughter of a family with lots of old money and a boatload of friends and acquaintances. In order to keep up his end at the wedding which is two weeks away he hires Jimmy, from Best Man Inc, to be the best man and also to provide a half a dozen close friends with appropriate back stories with whom he can go on the stag night, and who will be a suitable counterpoint to the seven maids of honour his future wife has put up. But when Jimmy is invited to a family lunch disaster is only avoided when Gretchen’s grandmother is set on fire, so how will it go at the real wedding?

Content: According to IMDb there are brief glimpses of a male penis (real) and a woman’s breasts (fake).  I did not see either. There are numerous set pieces, maybe the most engaging being the hiring of the “best friends” where there is scope for fun. The family lunch takes place which is a disaster, Gretchen is obsessed with the minutiae of the wedding, the fake best man and the groom go to someone else’s wedding for a trial run, the fake friends play a football game against the old guys from Gretchen’s family and of course really gross things happen on the stag night. Alison, Gretchen’s sister seems to figure Jimmy out straight away but says nothing.

A View: Kevin Hart is known for his machine gun patter, and that’s what we get, with Josh Gad sometimes joining in, so to start with this can only work if you are American.  Even American critics did not like it much, and most gave it negative reviews although in the end it made money. One can’t help thinking that since Doug seems to be a pretty charming and stand-up guy, who is making a success of his relationship with these fake people, why does he not have any friends anyway? So not a watch even for nothing.

Additional Info: The script had been knocking around since 2002 with various actors attached. It might have worked better with Owen Wilson.