MOVIE REVIEW- Down the... I'll have another movie, please
Hollywood professionals can crank out a movie like Made of Honor in their sleep– but that doesn't mean they should.
The setup, for those who haven't seen the trailer, is that Tom (Patrick Dempsey) is a womanizer with a strict set of dating rules (e.g., "I don't do back-to-backs," i.e., dating the same woman on consecutive nights) to help him avoid commitment. He can't even say "I love you," except to a dog. He doesn't want to be like his father (Sydney Pollack), who is marrying for the sixth time.
Tom's best friend is a woman, Hannah (Michelle Monaghan). They're a perfect couple but have been friends for so long– ten years– they don't realize they're in love with each other.
If you're a completist you'll want to see the opening sequence, which shows how they met in college when Tom climbed into bed with Hannah by mistake because he had a date with her roommate.
What's it going to take to make Tom realize he needs Hannah? How about a six-week separation while she goes to Scotland on business? It works for him. He realizes, "Maybe there's more to life than just sleeping around," and tells his basketball buddies he's going to pop the question as soon as she returns.
Trouble is, she returns with a Scottish fiancé in tow. Colin (Kevin McKidd) is not only tall and presumably handsome, if you like the type, but he's a duke, and his noble family owns the biggest distillery in Scotland. That's as much as we ever learn about Colin (except when the guys at the gym see "that monsta thing of his!"), who isn't developed into a full-fledged character; he's just an obstacle for the hero to overcome.
Hannah asks Tom to be her "maid of honor," because if he were getting married she knows he'd want her to be his "best man." He accepts, incurring the wrath of Melissa (Busy Phillips, trying to be a young Jennifer Coolidge), one of her bridesmaids, who already hates Tom because she's one of his sexual discards.
Melissa sabotages Hannah's shower, letting Tom take the fall. His friends tell him the way to win Hannah is to be "the best maid of honor ever," so he steps up his game, going to Scotland to help her with the wedding.
It's by-the-numbers from there on, and not particularly clever. This movie's Scots are not funny people, and while you don't expect too much attention to detail, someone might have noted that real Scotsmen don't wear anything under their kilts, and when it's 3am in Scotland it's not broad daylight in New York.
Dempsey manages to be likable without breaking a sweat, and Monaghan is always good but never memorable from one film to the next. They keep Made of Honor from being a total loss.
"When someone makes a mistake, and it's not your place to interfere," Hannah tells Tom, "you say, ‘I'm happy you're happy.'" Some people who shell out their money to see Made of Honor will actually enjoy it, and I'm happy they're happy.
#