Wedding Crashers

Though the majority of it is surprisingly engaging and often extremely funny, Wedding Crashers suffers from a third act that’s painfully overlong and needlessly sentimental. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson star as Jeremy and John, divorce mediators who spend several weeks a year crashing weddings and sleeping with as many lonely women as they can. Problems emerge after John finds himself falling for the bride’s maid of honor (Rachel McAdams’s Claire), despite the fact that she’s currently dating a pompous environmentalist (Bradley Cooper’s Sack). Director David Dobkin infuses the first hour of Wedding Crashers with a breezy charm that’s difficult to resist, while the uniformly superb cast, particularly Vaughn, who’s essentially playing a variation on his Trent persona from Swingers, often grounds the often exceedingly silly material in reality (or something approaching reality, at any rate). But at a certain point, the film shifts gears and becomes a conventional romcom – complete with the requisite and much-dreaded fake breakup. And then there’s the final half hour, which all but abandons the comedic vibe in favor of something far more pointedly melodramatic. It’s a shame, certainly, given that the majority of Wedding Crashers is just about as entertaining as one could’ve hoped, with Vaughn’s broad and genuinely hilarious performance remaining a continuing highlight within the proceedings.

**1/2 out of ****