Movie:
Professionally, John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) may deal with divorces, but their true passion belongs to weddings. That's because the two bachelors by conviction are professional wedding crashers. No matter where a wedding ceremony is being held, no matter what denomination or nationality, John and Jeremy always manage to sneak into the opulent celebrations as guests in order to pick up women there. In order to do this in the best possible way, the two must of course adhere very closely to the "Rules for Wedding Crashers". One of the most important rules, besides "never leave another wedding crasher alone", is that you must never, ever, under any circumstances fall in love with any of the women you seduce at a wedding.
For a few years things go well and slowly, with routine, boredom sets in and John, in particular, wonders if it might be time to end his career as a wedding crasher. But then comes a very special challenge for the two friends: the wedding of the daughter of the Secretary of the Treasury William Cleary (Christopher Walken). And it is at this celebration, of all places, that the inevitable happens: John discovers Claire (Rachel McAdams), with whom he is so fascinated from the first moment that he breaks all the major rules in order to get closer to her. As it turns out, Claire is also the daughter of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and already promised to the sleazy sack (Bradley Cooper). Despite all the warnings from Jeremy, who is properly hogged by Claire's sister Gloria (Isla Fisher), John doesn't let up, setting off a series of events that will put his experience as a wedding crasher to the test.
"The Wedding Crasher" by David Dobkin ("Clay Pigeons", "Shanghai Knights") is certainly not great head-scratching, highbrow romantic comedy or even level family fun. Rather, the film is just delightfully stupid in the best sense of the word, perhaps one of the reasons why the comedy was one of the most successful films of 2005 in the U.S., with a box office take of over $200 million. Most of the gags are just above the belt, but some of the jokes go below it with precise accuracy. The fact that the whole thing doesn't degenerate into an embarrassing lack of level is primarily thanks to the main actors. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have great chemistry and you can really believe in their long lasting friendship. On top of that, Vaughn isn't as criminally underused here as he was most recently in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith". As the wedding crasher, Vaughn once again gets to really show off his comedic talents, and even though much of the wordplay of his character in particular is lost to the German dubbing, you certainly get a sense that Vince Vaughn is a really good comedy actor even in this country.
Also between Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams ("Like a Single Day", "Girls Club") there is a huge tingle, which makes the romantic aspect of the film quite understandable. And Christopher Walken is, as always, a little crazy, which is why it's always fun to see him in comedies. A guest appearance by US star comedian Will Ferrell towards the end of the film and some really good gags ensure that you don't quite resent the director's humorous low blows and have a pretty good time overall. "The Wedding Crasher" will certainly not be a great comedy classic and probably not without reason the film flopped mercilessly in German cinemas. But at least the comedy offers almost two hours of light, undemanding entertainment, in which the brain is not overtaxed, but the laugh muscles are not underchallenged. Therefore, if you enjoy a bit of crude humor, you should definitely see the "Wedding Crashers" in action. Thoroughly worth seeing!
Picture:
Very good color balance and a decent level of sharpness make for extremely good humor here, which can't be spoiled by a few minor flaws in contrast. For that, there's a "Very good"!
Sound:
ier there are no screeching monsters or roaring spaceships, just plenty of music and (what is surely in the eye of the beholder) amusing dialogue. These are mixed well understandable, the soundtrack even gives the whole thing some space. For this, there is a genre-conditional "Gut"!
Extras:
To get it straight: the most important extra of the US and UK DVD is unfortunately missing from the German edition: the about 10 minutes longer film version, which presents a little more skin and crude wit, but overall differs little from the theatrical version.
The German DVD offers two audio commentaries to start with, with the one recorded by the two wedding crashers thoroughly preferable to the director's. Wilson and Vaughn have a lot of fun together and also deliver quite a few amusing stories about the filming, although the commentary never reaches the fun factor of Vaughn's bully commentary on the "Dodgeball" DVD. Still: absolutely worth listening to for fans.
Continues with four unused scenes, the last one being the only really interesting one, with Vaughn and Wilson performing Germany's flagship hit "99 Luftballons" in a very peculiar version!
A short and amusing special about audience reactions during the first test screenigs, as well as two featurettes about the filming (about 20 min. in total) together with the music video "Circus" by The Sights round up the bonus material. Not particularly much, amusing but all the time!
Conclusion:
Good, there were certainly more intelligent and witty comedies, entertaining entertainment is guaranteed with the wedding crashers but all times. Technically, the DVD is perfectly fine and among the bonus material, the whimsical audio commentary by the main actors is particularly pleasing. Only the lack of the longer "uncorked version" strikes negatively. Nevertheless: Fans of crude comedies can access here confidently!
Original title: The Wedding Crashers
Director: David Dobkin
Number of discs: 1
Languages: English, German (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles: German, English
Image Format: 16:9 (2.35:1)
Extras: audio commentaries, featurettes, music video, trailer, cut scenes, audience reactions
FSK: age 12+
length: approx. 114 min.
Regional code: 2
An article by Frankfurt-Tipp