MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES (2016)

Genre: Comedy
Director: Jake Szymanski
Cast: Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Adam Devine, Aubrey Plaza, Stephen Root
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scenes And Coarse Language)
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Official Website: http://www.foxmovies.com/movies/mike-and-dave-need-wedding-dates

Opening Day: 8 September 2016

Synopsis: Hard-partying brothers Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) place an online ad to find the perfect dates (Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza) for their sister's Hawaiian wedding. Hoping for a wild getaway, the boys instead find themselves outsmarted and out-partied by the uncontrollable duo.

Movie Review:

‘Based on a true story. Sort of,’ says the opening credits of ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’, that draws its premise from two real-life brothers named Mike and Dave Stangle whose story of finding wedding dates for their sister’s wedding on Craigslist went viral and led to TV appearances as well as a book. That disclaimer is liberty for first-time director Jake Szymanski (whose calling card includes a couple of ‘Funny or Die’ shorts and the HBO tennis comedy ‘7 Days in Hell’) and screenwriters Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien (best known for the two ‘Neighbours’ comedies) to fashion the latest gross-out wedding comedy, a fitfully entertaining if somewhat unremarkable entry into a subgenre that has seen the heights of ‘Wedding Crashers’, ‘The Hangover’ and ‘Bridesmaids’.

No different than each one of its predecessors, ‘Mike and Dave’ rests on a formula of copious vulgar gags performed by likeable actors who play misbehaving losers-in-life with hearts-of-gold. To find that balance makes the difference between a comedy that is just plain offensive and one that somehow feels warm and inclusive despite its crude misdemeanors, a constant struggle for Szymanski’s frantic, even frenetic-to-please, film notwithstanding the combined talents of Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Adam Devine and Aubrey Plaza – a full-body rub that the titular characters’ baby sister Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard) receives from a naked deadpan Indian masseuse (Kumail Nanjiani) the afternoon before her wedding is mildly amusing at first and then becomes simply disturbing; and a running gag with their butch bisexual cousin Terry (Alice Wetterlund) also gets rapidly ingratiating.

Lacking the discipline that often comes with experience, Szymanski throws everything including the kitchen sink at his audience in a desperate attempt to make something stick, and the result is often hit-and-miss, the former credit to the kooky charm that the stars bring than to the gags per se. Right from the beginning, Efron and Devine establish their loveable screw-up routine both from a home-video litany of disaster and destruction (involving wild drinking, dancing and trampoline-jumping) and from the opening sequence that shows how they use the same shenanigan every few weeks to hawk their liquor to a reluctant bar owner. Efron’s low-key straight-man act complements Devine’s intensely hyperactive get-up nicely, and though not all the improvisational work on set pays off, they have an infectiously lively rapport that rubs off on you.

Kendrick and Plaza, on the other hand, effortlessly upend gender expectations about how ‘bad-ass’ girls can get next to boys; oh yes, Alice (Kendrick) and Tatiana (Plaza) turn out to be even worse reprobates than Mike and Dave, and both actresses nail the degenerate-ness of their characters nicely. Whereas Plaza lets loose the cruelly comic side of her persona, Kendrick makes us believe in her character’s hollowed-out self-esteem (no thanks to being dumped by her ex-fiancee at the altar) and earns our sympathies along the way. It is probably no surprise that Mike and Dave will fall in love with their respective dates, and whether it is Efron and Kendrick’s sweet puppy-love romance or Devine and Plaza’s sexually-charged relationship, there is equally wonderful chemistry in either one of the male-female pairings.

But the ensemble of gifted comic stars cannot quite disguise the fact that ‘Mike and Dave’ has been constructed as a pile of sketches than as a story. Some of these work, such as a wild ATV ride that the foursome embark on with the bride and bridegroom (Sam Richardson) across the Hawaiian landscape where the dinosaurs first appeared in the original ‘Jurassic Park’; but others, like an Ecstasy trip the night of the rehearsal dinner which ends in Jeanie going stark naked and Alice covering her breasts with a horse’s mane strain credulity. Because it doesn’t have much of a backbone by way of story, Alice and Tatiana’s change of heart in the third act also rings hollow, leaving one unconvinced why such cynical individuals would suddenly turn introspective and confess (and confront) their deeper insecurities.

Despite its shortcomings, ‘Mike and Dave’ does in its sheer idiocy – and at times, lunacy – offer some delightful laughs, especially because the performers are often completely game no matter how silly or embarrassing the antics in and of themselves are. Not all the jokes hit the mark, and some miss by quite a fair bit, but if you’re looking for a fun raucous time, then you can do much worse than this unapologetically vulgar and unashamedly asinine comedy. As yet another entry in the gross-out wedding comedy subgenre though, it is mostly unremarkable and largely forgettable, so don’t go expecting another ‘Wedding Crashers’ or ‘The Hangover’ or ‘Bridesmaids’ and you’ll get your vulgar fix just fine. 

Movie Rating:

(Consistently – and sometimes desperately – lewd but only occasionally laugh-out-loud, this latest gross-out wedding comedy is good for a vulgar fix but not much more)

Review by Gabriel Chong