Directed by: David Dobkin
Written by: Steve Faber and Bob Fisher
Produced by: Peter Abrams, Robert L. Levy and Andrew Panay
Starring: Owen Wilson, Vince Vaugn, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Bradley Cooper
Buy it!, Buy it, rent it or skip it: Rent it

When Wedding Crashers was released last year, I wasn't that interested in checking it out. I do like frat comedies, but it didn't seem that interesting of a film in my eyes and so I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that weekend (which is a great film indeed). I then read in the newspaper a couple of weeks later of people who, inspired by the film, started to crash weddings and bar mitzvahs. I thought it was a riot, but I still didn't feel like seeing it. Recently while walking through my local DVD rental place, I decided "Sure, why not?" and rented the flick. It turned out to be a nice and funny film, despite its numerous flaws which I shall mention in my review.

Jeremy and John (Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson) have been best friends for over fifteen years and each summer they do the noble thing by crashing weddings to dance, eat free food and meet beautiful women. After reading in the newspaper about the "Kentucky derby of weddings", they go off to the church and do their thing. Both of them end up finding love in two rather interesting women, both of whom are the daughters of the Treasury Secretary (Christopher Walken). Claire Cleary (Rachel McAdams) becomes the apple in John's eye, but she has a rather annoying boyfriend with the unfortunate name of Sack (Bradley Cooper). Seriously, that name calls for so many jokes that don't happen for some odd reason. Jeremy, meanwhile, gets involved with Gloria (Isla Fisher) who is probably the greatest woman he's ever been involved with. When they're invited to visit the Cleary household, John tries to get closer to Claire, while Jeremy tries avoiding Gloria.

In a lot of comedies, it is up to the actors to save the film and Wedding Crashers is one of them. The screenplay attempts to be a raunchy "Frat Pack" laughfest and a romantic comedy at the same time and it is so much better at the former than the latter. The scenes involving John and Claire just slow the film down, especially one involving the two sneaking to their rooms (Why was that not cut in the editing room?!?). Sack is also an uninteresting villain with no funny lines and is too cruel a character for this type of film. He would have worked better as a Steve Stifler-type. Vince Vaughn, Keir O'Donnell and Isla Fisher end up saving the film and any scene they're in really livens things up. Will Ferrell's brief cameo also brings out many giggles. Unfortunately, Christopher Walken is sadly wasted. Another flaw is the film is too long and many scenes could have been taken out. Still, there are many funny scenes to make this worth watching.

The special features for this DVD begin with two audio commentaries: one from director David Dobkin and the other from Vaughn and Wilson. As per expected, the first track is informative and the second track is entertaining. Both are very worth listening to. Four un-funny deleted scenes that deserved their deletions are next followed by the film's only behind-the-scenes featurette appears which talks about the actors and how they planned the wedding scenes. A featurette and text screens on the rules of wedding crashing provide nothing interesting. The featurette consists mostly of film scenes, while the text screen can easily be read for free on IMDb. Finally, there are some trailers and horrible music video by The Sights.

Wedding Crashers is certainly a nice and funny picture, but it runs way too long and becomes too dramatic. The DVD's extras are also disappointing. I recommend just renting it.