Wedding Crashers

Let’s get one thing clear from the off: an Owen Wilson buddy flick without Ben Stiller Just Isn’t Right. Although director Dobkin maintains that crucial slacker-psycho balance by employing Vince Vaughn’s powdered-nose manicosity as Wilson’s comic foil, you can’t help but feel there’s a gaping hole where a small ball of crimplene-haired intensity should be. Vaughn and Wilson play two divorce mediators who get their kicks from gatecrashing weddings, where they have a wild old time entertaining the kids, dominating the dancefloor, scoffing the cake and shagging the bridesmaids. All is sporadically amusing in their bubble of optimistic immaturity, until the abruptly mood-sapping spectacle of LUV rears it’s ugly head, forcing these less-than-boyish lotharios (‘we’re not that young,’ goes one refrain) to reconsider their priorities during a weekend break with Christopher Walken (don’t worry, it all makes sense on screen).Caught partway between sensitive rom-com and boisterous buddy-flick, ‘Wedding Crashers’ is never sure how to resolve this divide, and – abandoning any pretence at brevity – methodically works through a cornucopia of subplots, comic tones and supporting characters in a bid to find a solution. Walken crops up as a De Niro-style scary father-in-law, Jane Seymour briefly debases herself, Isla Fisher appears as an ancillary love interest and finally Will Ferrell is called in to make sure things close with a bang. The latter’s ten-minute cameo almost pays off but it’s too little, too late; the lack of comic sleekness has already proved fatal. It’s good, but it’s no ‘Anchorman’.