Shotgun Wedding
Jennifer Lopez dons a wedding dress – again – in an implausible farce that gives the genre a bad name.
Bloody wedding: Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel
The joke is in the title. The wedding showcased in this new nuptial romcom is not of the shotgun variety, as Darcy Rivera and Tom Fowler have been going steady for four years. However, there are shotguns aplenty – at least, a small arsenal of semi-automatics and assault rifles. But let’s rewind. Shotgun Wedding features Jennifer Lopez (star of the marital romcoms The Wedding Planner, Monster-In-Law and Marry Me) as the daughter of a multimillionaire (Cheech Marin), whose nearest and dearest are flown out to a remote, private island in the Philippines to watch the happy couple tie the knot. That’s all fine and dandy, and no doubt the cost and lavish attention to detail will appeal to subscribers of Brides magazine, although in a worldwide recession such extravagance may prove vulgar. But, hey, this is an escapist romp, so even when the furnishings and embellishments get destroyed, and the occasional wedding guest is shot, it’s all in the pursuit of a wide grin, if you can even manage a smirk.
As it happens, Darcy didn’t want a grand wedding in the first place and Tom only came up with the idea to show how much he loved Darcy, without actually listening to her. And so on the big day, marital Armageddon erupts as Tom and Darcy tear strips off each other, oblivious to the fact that all their relatives and best friends have been rounded up by a taskforce of gun-toting pirates. We’re in the Philippines, where there is a surfeit of such brigands, as illustrated in the recent Plane. But these guys take the biscuit, adorned with the silliest headgear outside of a Paris fashion shoot, proving a hazard to the wearers and a laughing stock to us, the audience. Luckily, the pirates are idiots, but then so are the guests, as the hostage siege backfires on as many improbable levels as the scenarist Mark Hammer can muster.
Not only is Shotgun Wedding very stupid but is so far removed from any semblance of real life that it makes a mockery of human interaction. The entire cast overacts in “comedy” mode, while the accommodating orchestra underscores every dramatic and comic beat to ensure we haven’t missed anything. And the dialogue, frankly, is unbelievable. Josh Duhamel, who plays the emotionally stunted Tom Fowler, at one point screams, “I feel excited, like I’m going to shit myself!” While JLo herself enquires of a dead pirate: “Are you dead?” And then poor D'Arcy Carden, as Cheech Marin’s girlfriend, is given the unfortunate line: “I’m a Gemini – I bruise easily.” Nobody can survive such claptrap. JLo has been given a rough ride with her critics when it comes to romantic comedy, but films like Maid in Manhattan and Marry Me genuinely appealed to dreamy diehards and had wit and charm to spare. Not so Shotgun Wedding. And just when we thought that Ticket to Paradise was the worst nuptial farce ever to be set in a tropical paradise…
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Coolidge, Sônia Braga, Cheech Marin, Callie Hernandez, Desmin Borges, D'Arcy Carden, Lenny Kravitz, Steve Coulter, Melissa Hunter, Alberto Isaac, Selena Tan.
Dir Jason Moore, Pro Todd Lieberman, David Hoberman, Alexander Young, Jennifer Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Benny Medina, Ex Pro Ryan Reynolds, Screenplay Mark Hammer, Ph Peter Deming, Pro Des N.C. Page Buckner, Ed Doc Crotzer, Music Pinar Toprak, Costumes Mitchell Travers.
Summit Entertainment/Lionsgate/Mandeville Films/Nuyorican Productions-Amazon Studios.
91 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 27 January 2023. Available on Amazon Prime. Cert. 15.
