The Wedding Ringer

This film tells the story of a reclusive man who manages to capture the heart of the woman of his dreams. As he doesn't have friends, he hires a group of people to pretend to be his best men and his best friends.

"The Wedding Ringer" is more funny than I expected! The whole concept of the film I'd hilarious, and the delivery of the story is wildly funny and yet not offensive. Kevin Hart's character gets into so much trouble, having to cover up lie after lie. And the bachelor party scene is so funny that it made me laugh hard! The idea of best men for hire is actually quite believable, and I wonder if this service does exist in real life! I enjoyed watching "The Wedding Ringer" a lot.

Doug is a nerdy introvert who is about to get married to a beautiful girl Gretchen. However, with two weeks to go before their grand wedding, Doug still could not come up with a Best Men and six groomsmen. Enter the smooth-talking hustler Jimmy who runs a Best Man for rent business to provide what Doug so desperately needed: a best friend. The spoofy title comes from the traditional Best Man duty of bringing the wedding rings during the ceremony.

Many wedding comedies would be about the bride, like "My Best Friend's Wedding" or "Bride Wars." There have been movies about the parents, like "Father of the Bride" or "Mother of the Bride". There have been been movies about the "The Wedding Planner" or "The Wedding Singer' or even "Wedding Crashers.' More recently, there had films about members of the entourage of either gender, "The Hangover" and "Bridesmaids." As a point of distinction, "The Wedding Ringer" is an uncommon wedding comedy made from the point of view of the groom.

Josh Gad is well-cast as the shy and socially-inept groom-to-be Doug. With his chubby frame, smiling face and polite demeanor, it is not hard to rally behind him and root him on. It is not really hard to conceive how a significant number of men could face the problems as Doug, not having male friends close enough to call a best man or groomsmen. He is easy for the audience to identify with.

Kevin Hart is a natural to play the boisterous and gregarious Jimmy, who had to fit in all the tall tales that Doug told Gretchen about his imaginary "best friend" dubiously named Bic. Despite his character's filthy mouth prone to profanity, Hart still manages to be funny and engaging in a potentially annoying role.

The other actors portraying the "groomsmen" were a rowdy random bunch of the strangest types of men. They were hit and miss in their jokes, many times coming off as too cringe-worthy. Easily recognizable among them is hefty, long-haired Jorge Garcia. The very final scene is even a well- placed reference to Garcia's most famous role on the hit TV thriller series "Lost."

As the bride Gretchen, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting basically reprises her breakthrough role as a sexy but flaky girl in an unlikely relationship with a nerd on hit TV comedy series "Big Bang Theory". More positively impressive is Olivia Thirlby as Gretchen's younger sister Alison. Ms. Thirlby is very pretty and smart, making a mark despite her limited screen time.

Overall, "The Wedding Ringer," with all its derivative, shallow and raunchy humor, still manages to come across with some insightful ideas about male friendships and its intricacies. The lead pair of Josh Gad and Kevin Hart share a vibrant bromantic comic chemistry together that is a lot of fun to watch. Looking forward to watching more film projects starring these two upcoming young comedians. 6/10.

I'm now writing this review back to back with another (similar?) comedy Unfinished Business (2015) with Vince Vaughn (who actually was supposed to be the star of the wedding ringer along with Owen Wilson).

I'm disappointed from most of the recent comedies, so I had low expectations with this one too. Well...the verdict is...it's better than expected! Not a masterpiece or anything but it works.

The premise? You've seen it before in many variations. A socially unpopular guy is engaged to be married with a "hot" woman, above his looks and status. His problem? He doesn't have any friends, so he hires a professional "best man" and his team, so he can offer to his woman the wedding she dreamed of.

Josh Gad and Kevin Hart are not first class comedians. They have some chemistry though, so the inevitable bromance works.

There are some funny moments. A dance. Some crude humor but not too much. It looks like Wedding Crashers "Lite".

Overall: Watch it if you had the time. Not great but overall is satisfying enough.

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I did not think it would be as funny as it was.

I knew Kevin Hart would be hilarious cause that is what Hart does no matter what the quality of the actual film is, but the entire movie and it's cast turned out to be humorous as well.

It was one of the strangest guy movies I've ever seen with a strange cast of guys in it. Add to the strangeness is the fact that it centers around a wedding. Guy movies usually don't do that.

The movie could have been done with more depth, but like most Kevin Hart vehicles, the only true purpose is to showcase his own comedy, so its not gonna win any awards, but its a goes time at the movies.

There's honestly not much more to say on this movie. It did exactly what it seems it set out to do- make people laugh and have them walk away with the warm fuzzies.

The characters have great chemistry on screen, especially Kevin Hart and Josh Gad. The plot is pretty easy to predict, but there are still a few surprises on how some points are executed. There are some great laugh-out-loud moments, even with a couple of cringe-worthy ones (was the view of what the dog chomped on really needed?).

All in all, I had a good time watching it. I kind of wish I had waited to see it in the $2 theater, but I'd watch it again if given the chance.