Our Family Wedding (Fox Searchlight Films)
Call Off the Wedding
About a third of the way through the lifeless, laughless comedy titled Our Family Wedding you will want to stand up and shout Call off the wedding! Never has a group of talented actors been so bogged down in the mire of misdirected, mis-scripted mayhem than with this movie. America Ferrara, Forrest Whitaker, Regina King, Carlos Mencia, Diana-Maria Riva and Lance Gross all deserve a better vehicle than this one.
The film starts off okay with a cute couple, Lucia (Ferrara) and Marcus (Gross), planning to go to their home town of Los Angeles to tell their parents they are getting married. The fact she is Hispanic and he is black shouldnt be a problem. The problem is Marcus father Brad (Whitaker) and Lucias father Miguel (Mencia) hate each other on sight.
Of course the kids still plan to wed and the fathers agree to split the cost of the wedding, which will be held at Brads house. All kinds of complications arise and things get totally out of hand. That would be acceptable if the characters did not basically become cartoons as they have a food fight in the bakery where the wedding cake is being selected or if a goat didnt get loose and trash the wedding reception area.
This is when it is obvious the movie can not make up its mind if it is bound by simple logic or can float into the area of inane preposterous comedy. This division of the real and the unreal sabotages any chance of getting the audience emotionally involved in the film.
Ferrara is an audience favorite thanks to her run on TVs Ugly Betty but in this movie there is nothing of that appealing personality to be seen. You expect her to bring a special spark to Lucia and to create a couple with Gross that you can root for from beginning to end. It doesnt happen and it is more Ferraras fault than Gross. He does give a little spin to his role and makes Marcus a likeable young man.
As the battling g fathers both Whitaker and Mencia have their moments of warmth and humor, but they also have moments that totally fall flat. There is no consistency in their performances and these dull areas cant be blamed on the lackluster script. A good actor makes lemonade out of lemons, so these two should be able to do something to make the script appear to be more than it is.
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity, sexual situations and comic violence.
With a better script and better direction this film could have been a modern day Guess Whos Coming To Dinner As is, it is just a mess that never finds its footing and drags its actors down.
I scored Our Family Wedding a called off 3 out of 10.
