Although a bit uncertain over whether it wants to be a farce or romantic comedy, this flick out of the Wilson/Ferrell/Vaughn crew is still pretty funny. Not as funny as it could have been if Owen Wilson’s puppy dog eyes were left out and the plot attached more completely to the actual wedding crashing, but still okay.

Wedding Crashers is the story of John Beckwith (Owen Wilson, the blonde brother) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn), mid-30s DC yuppies who have the rulebook for how to successful crash any wedding as the penultimate source of loose women. Only superhot loose women for them, easily acquired through a complete set of stories, tricks and over the top joie de vivre suitable to any crowd. The opening 30 minutes or so, as we watch the pair go through a sequence of weddings and after-wedding sex, are brilliantly hilarious.

Then they decide to crash the wedding of the season, the oldest daughter of the

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Secretary of the Treasury. Not only is he Owen’s economic idol, his family is intended to model the Kennedys with multi-generational political service, touch football games at the family compound and a passion for sailing. At the wedding Vaughn hooks up with the seemingly kooky youngest daughter (played with flair by Down Under hotness Ilsa Fisher) and Wilson with the middle daughter (Rachel McAdams)–Vaughn as per SOP for a single slog but Wilson falls for his.

The second act of the film covers the 36 hours after the wedding when the boys are invited back to the Clearly estate. Immediately we get two wrenches–McAdams is essentially engaged (to Bradley Cooper, Will from Alias) to a two-faced bastard and Fisher is not going to let Vaughn off the hook that easily. Here’s where the film turns into a justabove average romantic comedy: Wilson and McAdams are clearly meant for each other but Cooper is slick and sleazy enough to keep them apart. And tough, as he and his buddies are not above repeated beatings to keep the status quo.

The script by new boys Steve Faber and Bob Fisher and the direction from David Dobkin, who worked with Vaughn in Clay Pigeons and Wilson in Shaghai Knights (the sequel, not the first), has sufficent laughs and hot chicks to make up for the slower bits. Although the creepy scenes towards the end with Will Ferrell, as Vaughn’s crashing mentor, would surely have been left in the editing room if Chazz Reinhold had been played by a less commercially significant actor.

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