A very pleasant surprise, the Wedding Ringer hits far more than it misses and, despite following a well worn formula,  is truly very funny.

When Doug Harris (Josh Gad) finds himself in the humiliating position of being 10 days from his wedding to Gretchen Palmer (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) and unable to produce his fictional groomsmen and best man, he turns to Jimmy Callahan (Kevin Hart) who offers professional best man services for guys who don’t have close enough friends to fill out a wedding party. Doug’s case is extreme and Jimmy has to find seven other groomsmen to step in as characters that Doug set up on the fly while lying his ass off while at the same time showing up to family functions as Bic Mitchem, a military chaplain. Hilarity ensues.

Going into this movie I really expected it to be terrible. I love both Kevin Hart and Josh Gad but even writing the premise, which is an unholy mixture of Hitch and I Love You Man, seems ridiculous and terrible to me. What the Wedding Ringer turns out to be, however, is consistently funny, occasionally touching and surprisingly even handed and thought provoking. It is kind of weird given that it follows an overused formula without deviating much from expectations and you can guess the ending pretty much before you see the movie but at the same time it works within that formula to subvert and challenge expectations in a way that I found impressive. And as mentioned, it is consistently funny.

It is tricky with comedy because so much of it is subjective and it is especially difficult when the humor skews to the vulgar and absurd but I found what was offered here to be reasonably fresh and on point. The set up seems stale but again the movie uses the familiar tropes to do things that the audience wouldn’t expect. It can be very over the top but it never really devolves into the easy and obvious gags that you see so often in this general type of comedy. The actual plot might be well worn but the jokes it contains are not.

Some of what impressed me the most in this movie is also material that I cannot really get into without spoilers but there are a lot of moments in which it looks like the movie is taking the easy route or the patently offensive route in terms of sexism, homophobia and body image but then it swings a 180 and subverts expectations. This is very refreshing because it would be pretty easy to make a lot of those jokes and end up with a lowest common denominator comedy that deals in the truly offensive but instead it does something much more clever and even handed.

At bottom the Wedding Ringer is very much a broad gross out comedy with a huge helping of vulgarity and it works well enough on that level. There are pratfalls and dick jokes and all manner of scatological comedy here and it is funny enough that it would be fine if it was left at that. The Wedding Ringer gives you something extra though and I think that is really cool. It doesn’t feel heavy handed even in the moments in which the sentimentality feels the most manufactured and it is very hard not to be won over by the easy chemistry between the too leads. That it thinks to address any other issues or offer up a real message about friendship is icing on the cake and takes it from a serviceable comedy to a really good comedy. That may not seem like a big leap really but for me it is. There are plenty of movies that are pretty funny but it is much less common for them to be more than a nice diversion on a lazy afternoon and I feel like the Wedding Ringer managed to be more.

A large amount of weight rests on the shoulders of Josh Gad and Kevin Hart. If their chemistry hadn’t worked out then the whole thing would have fallen flat. Luckily their chemistry was right on and each hit just the right notes when they needed to in order to keep things on the right emotional track. Gad in particular had to be a likeable guy who you want to root for but who also is believable as a loner without close friends. This isn’t an easy feat but he makes it look like it is. Hart also has to play a character playing another character and his ability to show the audience when he is faking sincerity vs. when he isn’t is a treat to see. That might sound strange given he is an actor who is acting but there is a lot on his plate and the nuance and subtly that he shows is impressive. I like Hart in general but this might be my favorite thing he has done.

For Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting it would have been easy to turn in a generic bridezilla type character we have seen a million times but while she has less to do here she manages to play her part just right and it is easy to believe she is in a relationship with Doug and why. The motley crew of groomsmen are also a treat as they are all pretty weird guys with different oddities but none of them really over did it and they ended up coming off as really fun. I particularly enjoyed Jorge Garcia and it was good to see him again.

Conclusion [8.0 out of 10]

The Wedding Ringer was a pretty big surprise for me. A January comedy with a broad and ridiculous premise sounded like a certain miss but it managed to be very funny while giving a little something extra. If you don’t like gross out/vulgar humor then you probably aren’t going to dig this much but if that sort of thing is up your alley then you are in very good hands here. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie and I think that if you give it a chance you probably will be too.