by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
I’m always down for a romantic comedy, especially if you’re going to mix it up with an action B-movie, but it has to be done right. There has to be a clear vision, solid jokes, and good action. Unfortunately, besides completely misunderstanding what the definition of a shotgun wedding is, and misappropriating that colloquialism for this film’s title, Shotgun Wedding is a film that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. On one hand, this film tries to take itself seriously as a romantic comedy by layering in metaphors about commitment and what it means to make a marriage work. On the other hand, it is a campy and schlocky action film with cheesy acting, and a boatload of ridiculous scenarios, that will make you laugh at the absurdist humor. Frankly, I wish this flick leaned into the latter, but as it never seems to go all in either way, it just ends up being a mixed vibe, making Shotgun Wedding an overall meh film.
Our tale takes place in the Philippines as Darcy (Jennifer Lopez) and Tom (Josh Duhamel) are on the eve of their destination wedding. Family and friends have all flown in, and there’s excitement and tension abound. But on the day of their wedding, things go horribly awry when a dozen pirates land on their remote island and start ransacking the wedding and taking its guests hostage. It’s up to our lovebirds to work together and take on these buccaneers before their special day ends up in death.
Inherently, this is an interesting premise. Color me intrigued. Especially when you account for the fact that the runtime is only 101 minutes long. That’s just enough for me to enjoy the laughs and the action, while not dragging out so long as to strain my attention. In reality, this film really struggles to balance its runtime, and it does grow tiresome. The setup — the first act — feels far too long. It only takes 25 minutes until the pirates show, but it feels longer due to annoying character decisions and overall anticipation of wanting the real fun to begin. To this end, 101 minutes has never felt so long. This was not the breeze that I was expecting it to be. You’re dealing with a constant red light/green light, stop and go, that crushes the momentum of the movie. If anything, I was checking the clock quite often just to see how much longer we had until the film ended. Unfortunately, the jokes weren’t funny enough, the action wasn’t good enough, and the melodrama wasn’t engaging enough for this film to hold my attention, even for a short run time.
But I don’t wanna throw the baby out with the bathwater; there are some enjoyable aspects of this film. Jennifer Coolidge is outright killing it with everything she’s doing. She’s come a long way from playing Hottie Police Officer and Stifler’s Mom in A Night at the Roxbury and American Pie, respectively. She’s been enjoying quite the career renaissance over the past few years, and this performance only goes further to show why she’s such a talent and deserves a leading role. It could be calling out people who are trying to hide from the pirates, trying to get JLo to wear her old wedding dress, or talking about her sex life — everything she’s doing here is hilarious. She steals every scene that she’s in, and is easily the best part of this movie.
I also have to say some of these absurdist jokes work incredibly well. Watching someone go down a zip line using a set of hair extensions instead of a harness, batting a hand grenade at a pirate like you were swing at a baseball, going parasailing with with the enemy, or hearing an entire wedding congregation break out into an a cappella rendition of “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain is outright hilarious. There’s also several quirky performances from the likes of Lenny Kravitz and D’Arcy Carden that’ll certainly raise an eyebrow. I’m not saying they’re entirely good performances, but at least they are outlandish enough to make you notice they’re going for something.
Outside of these things, the movie is back on the struggle bus. Lopez is doing a decent job, and some of her line readings are genuinely funny, but her character’s waffling behavior makes it difficult to enjoy her performance overall. Duhamel is bland as toast. A fiancé who wants to do everything right for his wife, but just can’t seem to get out of his own way, is an archetype that we’ve seen many times before, and he doesn’t bring anything extra to the performance to make it worthwhile. The movie also, egregiously, wastes Cheech Marin. It’s a travesty what little they gave this legend of comedy to do throughout this movie.
The action is also fairly lackluster. Sure, there might be a scene in which someone gets lit on fire, or one decent action set piece that takes place in a kitchen, but outside of that it’s all incredibly generic. I really wish the movie had amped up the action, or made it more ridiculous, to tie into the humor. But most of the movie you’ll spend time watching the pirates stand still or patrol the island, with very little action or fighting that actually takes place.
But the big derailment to this film is how seriously it takes itself regarding its main romantic relationship, and how much it kills its own momentum. The movie essentially has the same combustive conversation over and over. I lost track of how many times our troubled couple started fighting about whether or not they should get married. They fight, they make up, they seem happy, then they fight again, bringing up the same points over and over again. Throughout the entire flick we see Lopez being scared of commitment, and Duhamel being over aggressive in wanting to provide the perfect life. We see metaphors, or hear direct conversations, about what it means to have a commitment, to be married, and to fight for that marriage. Every day is a struggle, but it’s a struggle that you willingly accept and work on together to create a life that’s worth living. Yadda yadda yadda, we get it. Even the metaphors get tiresome when there’s literally one scene with a meat slicer in the movie with Lopez being hesitant to move forward and Duhamel wanting to get the damn thing going. It’s relentless.
If the energy of these conversations and scenes were more chaotic, frivolous, and humorous, I could’ve tolerated this quite a bit more. It would have matched the jokes and action. But the entire tone of the film changes during these scenes. The musical score gets so much more dramatic, and the actors lose their charm. You can’t have Coolidge in one scene talking about her sexcapades and then in another scene just a few minutes later talking about how marriage takes a lot of work. These things just don’t mix, or at least they don’t mix in this movie.
If you are a fan of romantic comedies, absurdist humor, or Jennifer Lopez, Shotgun Wedding might be for you. Hell, if you’ve got a free afternoon and you’re just a fan of Jennifer Coolidge you might be able to have a fun. But don’t set your expectations too high, because you could just as easily get away with not watching this at all.
Score: 5/10
Shotgun Wedding is currently streaming on Prime Video
You can read more from Heath Lynch, and follow him on Letterboxd