Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are part of the new hip “in” group responsible for the brand of commercial humor currently in vogue with Hollywood’s favorite demographic. Owen’s brother Luke is “in” as is Ben Stiller and Will Farrell. Bill Murray is the father of the genre - see CADDYSHACK and GHOSTBUSTERS. Irreverence is their only essential, with its associated borderline tastelessness about sex and other social conventions that adults might find outrageous. It is collegiate humor, modeled on a now "classic" template: ANIMAL HOUSE.
This is the boys-behaving-badly-but-cutely school of humor and it can be irresistible, for about the length of a skit on SNL, where most of the practitioners did their undergraduate work. Give them a clever premise and they will rock us --- for about 15 minutes: as in OLD SCHOOL (guys approaching 30 try to recapture their wild frat days), or STARSKY AND HUTCH, (spoof on 70's TV show); RON BURGUNDY (obnoxious 70's local TV guys), DODGEBALL (ESPN spoof with dorks funning themselves).
The hallmark of these crazy guys is that they are meant to be featured players, not the central character in any movie. In small doses they are all fine, but by Act 2, our underwear bunches. When they have to fall back on some kind of plot twist and resort to romantic comedy conventions, they are in serious trouble.
Bill Murray is the only one who was able to escape the genre, re-energizing his persona to carry a movie by himself. Beginning with GROUNDHOG DAY, he morphed into a star by toning down his frantic self into someone who approached a human being. Adam Sandler is trying to do this now in PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, 50 FIRST DATES and SPANGLISH. (Steve Martin was the original "wild and crazy guy" in the SNL skits, but his film career began more on the Jerry Lewis model than a collegiate wise guy.
The fact is that despite the seeming “hipness” of these “new” faces, their movies are more traditional than their born yesterday audiences admit. In this film, Vaughn and Wilson recall traditional buddies like Crosby and Hope in the ROAD pictures and Curtis and Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT. One is the foil for the other — the wacky sidekick shills for the straighter guy-who-gets-the-girl guy.
Another essential element of the traditional formula is to dump the wackos into the pompous country club family of the love object (here played by Rachel McAdams). A weird father is helpful — DeNiro in MEET THE PARENTS and Christopher Walken here. Hilarity must ensue, and the uptight heroine must be lured away from her “acceptably” pompous boyfriend by the sexy wildness of our hero. The boring boyfriend character is as old as the parts reserved for Ralph Bellamy in the screwball comedies of the 1930's. It is also helpful to have the usual cast of minor characters: a bored and libidinous mom, a scatalogical senile grandma.
The hook of this movie is the idea that these guys get laid by crashing weddings, latching on to sex-starved girls made vulnerable by the inherently romantic atmosphere. The first act montage is a funny bit — an extended SNL premise that is milked for variations: ethnic and sexual. Of course, the outrageous and irresponsible behavior is fun while it lasts — and for Wilson it lasts until he finds the “right girl.” We are now in the traditional sitcom rules of romantic comedies. One of the oldest conventions of the genre requires the untangling of the initial deception that got the couple together.
Wilson's whining voice gets annoying fast, and Vaughn's rapid-fire neurotic wisecracks misfire too often. But of course, Will Farrell makes a cameo appearance to remind us of what great comic actors can accomplish.
This is the boys-behaving-badly-but-cutely school of humor and it can be irresistible, for about the length of a skit on SNL, where most of the practitioners did their undergraduate work. Give them a clever premise and they will rock us --- for about 15 minutes: as in OLD SCHOOL (guys approaching 30 try to recapture their wild frat days), or STARSKY AND HUTCH, (spoof on 70's TV show); RON BURGUNDY (obnoxious 70's local TV guys), DODGEBALL (ESPN spoof with dorks funning themselves).
The hallmark of these crazy guys is that they are meant to be featured players, not the central character in any movie. In small doses they are all fine, but by Act 2, our underwear bunches. When they have to fall back on some kind of plot twist and resort to romantic comedy conventions, they are in serious trouble.
Bill Murray is the only one who was able to escape the genre, re-energizing his persona to carry a movie by himself. Beginning with GROUNDHOG DAY, he morphed into a star by toning down his frantic self into someone who approached a human being. Adam Sandler is trying to do this now in PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, 50 FIRST DATES and SPANGLISH. (Steve Martin was the original "wild and crazy guy" in the SNL skits, but his film career began more on the Jerry Lewis model than a collegiate wise guy.
The fact is that despite the seeming “hipness” of these “new” faces, their movies are more traditional than their born yesterday audiences admit. In this film, Vaughn and Wilson recall traditional buddies like Crosby and Hope in the ROAD pictures and Curtis and Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT. One is the foil for the other — the wacky sidekick shills for the straighter guy-who-gets-the-girl guy.
Another essential element of the traditional formula is to dump the wackos into the pompous country club family of the love object (here played by Rachel McAdams). A weird father is helpful — DeNiro in MEET THE PARENTS and Christopher Walken here. Hilarity must ensue, and the uptight heroine must be lured away from her “acceptably” pompous boyfriend by the sexy wildness of our hero. The boring boyfriend character is as old as the parts reserved for Ralph Bellamy in the screwball comedies of the 1930's. It is also helpful to have the usual cast of minor characters: a bored and libidinous mom, a scatalogical senile grandma.
The hook of this movie is the idea that these guys get laid by crashing weddings, latching on to sex-starved girls made vulnerable by the inherently romantic atmosphere. The first act montage is a funny bit — an extended SNL premise that is milked for variations: ethnic and sexual. Of course, the outrageous and irresponsible behavior is fun while it lasts — and for Wilson it lasts until he finds the “right girl.” We are now in the traditional sitcom rules of romantic comedies. One of the oldest conventions of the genre requires the untangling of the initial deception that got the couple together.
Wilson's whining voice gets annoying fast, and Vaughn's rapid-fire neurotic wisecracks misfire too often. But of course, Will Farrell makes a cameo appearance to remind us of what great comic actors can accomplish.
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