HelenMary
This is one of those films that you know what's going to happen and you know it's going to be rather dire but you watch anyway and it's really funny. Really gross in places, horrendously dirty but it's actually pretty good. Wedding jitters, family miscommunication, reception cocaine fountain, an errant drug dealer, a runaway sheep, a suicidal best man, a lactose intolerant friend and a house on a cliff-edge... and if that doesn't make you want to see it for laughs, well, you're missing out. Good performances by everyone especially Xavier Samuel and the brilliant (also in Death at a Funeral) Kris Marshall. Rebel Wilson was a laugh and her indubitable self and Olivia Newton-John put in a star turn as the put-upon-wife-turned lush. She is fabulous!Not for you if you are sensitive to jokes of a sexual nature, bad language, or physical humour involving laxatives. Laugh out loud, cringeworthy, funny. Enjoyed it even though I had to close my eyes a few times.
Neil Welch
English David (Xavier Samuel) meets Australian Mia (Laura Brent) on holiday: they fall in love and, by the time he arrives home, they are engaged. So orphan David goes to his wedding, at Mia's enormous house in the Blue Mountains (Laura's Dad is a Senator) accompanied by his three best friends and family substitutes Tom (Kris Marshall, a glib, super-confident chancer, Graham (Kevin Bishop, awkward, graceless, and socially inept) and Luke (Tim Draxl, raw and bordering on suicidal from a recent romantic break-up). All would probably have been well had Tom not taken a small detour to buy some weed, and had Graham not accidentally acquired the dealer's stock of cocaine...The small amount of advance word here was not good, and I found the early parts of the film irritating and filled with "Well, he just wouldn't do that" stuff - why does David walk in the pouring rain from Trafalgar Square to St Paul's (at least half an hour) carrying his Polynesian carving on his way home? Why didn't he just get a bus nearer to where he lived? He wouldn't walk in through his front door with dog mess still on the sole of his sandal, he'd scrape it off outside. He wouldn't throw his wet shirt over there etc. etc. And the characters were annoyingly clichéd - could anyone be as stupid as Graham? And Luke's maudlin whingeing about his ex-girlfriend left no room for any other characterisation at all. Then factor in the idiotic detour to buy drugs, which I couldn't envision anyone doing on the eve of their best friend's wedding, and I'm a third of the way through the movie having chuckled a few times, but with any amusement far outweighed by irritation. Next we meet a comedy drug dealer, and Mia's dad Jim, a cliché bullying Dad who regards the wedding as more important for its networking opportunities than for what it means for his daughter, and I'm even more annoyed (to be fair, there has been a moderate amount of laughter from the audience, most of whom were much younger than me).But at this point we also meet Rebel Wilson as Mia's sister Daphne, and Olivia, Newton and John as mum Barbara, and things begin to look up. The wedding morning consequences of the stag night shenanigans are genuinely amusing, and I'm starting to warm to the film. In true farce manner, actions have consequences, and those consequences have further consequences, and things start to unravel. Graham ends up in the position of having to give the best man's speech, a role to which he is spectacularly unsuited, and this sequence left me helpless with laughter as he reels from one faux pas to another, each one being worse than the one which preceded it. From here to the end, the film lurched through a series of disasters, some physical, some situational, some character-based, most of them tasteless, and nearly all of them very funny indeed.Rebel Wilson is naturally very funny, and it was a delight to see Olivia, Newton and John (ageing most attractively) joyfully attacking areas which Grease's Sandy, even in black leather, would have been far too prim to address.After an unconvincing opening, this film made me laugh out loud more than any movie I can remember for a long time, and that is what I take away with me.
Saad Khan
A Few Best Men – CATCH IT (B+) 'A Few Best Men" is a trashy, dirty and raw Australian version of The Hangover. Mostly people will find this version very offending and generic but I think it's funny and hilarious. It's not important that everything should be high budgeted and classy. Most of the times these kind of movies make you laugh hard. The highlight of the movie is defiantly the wedding speech by the groom's best friend Kevin Bishop "Graham". The whole cast manage to do some of the most gross and dirtier scenes ever with Big Australian Sheep. Xavier Samuel is great as a groom trying to save his wedding from being a disastrous mess. Kevin Bishop literally stole the show first with his crazy Hitler mustaches and hairs and later with his Wedding Speech and as the Sheep hand raper. Even I was happy when Xavier slaps Tim Draxl, I wanted to do that the moment he appeared on screen. Kris Marshall is funny. Rebel Wilson is good but she doesn't have many dialogues or scenes as always. Laura Brent is gorgeous and Olivia Newton-John is over the top as required. On the whole, it's a crazy dirty trashy fun entertainer. I enjoyed it!
