Shotgun Wedding review
After scratching her rom com itch with last year’s Marry Me, Jennifer Lopez goes less traditional with the goofy, but fun action rom com Shotgun Wedding.
This has the same 80s energy Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum attempted to channel in The Lost City just with more consistent humor and better matched leads.
Lopez is Darcy, a bride who’s not nearly as hyper focused on every detail of her destination wedding as her fiancé, Tom (Josh Duhamel, Blackout).
Tom wants everything to go smoothly, but there’s little chance of that happening. Darcy’s divorced parents Robert (Cheech Marin) and Renata (Sonia Braga) still have a tough time being in the same room especially since Robert’s girlfriend (D’Arcy Carden) is big on PDA.
Tom’s best friend (Desmin Borges) is smitten with Darcy’s sister, Jamie (Callie Hernandez, La La Land) and his parents (Jennifer Coolidge and Steve Coulter) are low-key embarrassing in large group settings. That’d be bad enough, but Robert also invited Darcy’s super suave ex, Sean (Lenny Kravitz), to the wedding.
Just as the nerves start unraveling and the feet get a little frosty the day of the wedding, things get worse as pirates come to crash the big day.
Darcy and Tom manage to avoid getting kidnapped, but naturally are severely unprepared to deal with a wedding invasion.
Lopez and Duhamel have an easy chemistry that makes the various ridiculous hijinks Tom and Darcy encounter easier to sit back and let play out.
Lopez has always been a reliable performer in rom coms. She gets to bring more of an edge to Darcy who’s navigating cold feet, a hideous wedding dress and a life-or-death struggle at her destination wedding.
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For her glitz and glam lifestyle, Lopez has never been afraid to look silly for the sake of landing a joke. Lopez leans into that attitude further here making for her most refreshing performance since Hustlers.
Duhamel doesn’t turtle up and sits in the background while Lopez gets all the big moments. He’s game for all the physical comedy elements while avoiding making Tom look like a buffoon.
The supporting cast is strong. Coolidge has some of screenwriter Mark Hammer’s shakiest dialogue, but she’s in the quirky supporting character zone well enough to get some big laughs especially in the final act. Kravitz also stands out for the versatility he brings to his role.
Despite the ludicrous setup, director Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) keeps things from going too far off the outlandish rails.
Sure, Moore has to embrace the absurdity of the characters and the situation but playing it too stupid or silly would result in a film that’s going for the cheap jokes and delivering none.
Shotgun Wedding isn’t aiming for the most sophisticated comedy of 2023. It’s a simple, little diversion with a likable cast having some fun with a crazy premise that worthy of an RSVP.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Amazon Studios
Catch Shotgun Wedding now on Amazon Prime.