A Few Best Men [MA]

Whilst on holiday, David meets a lovely Australian girl and it’s love at first sight. So he proposes and, soon after returning to England to pick up his mates, David finds himself flying to the Land Down Under for his wedding. If David had nerves about meeting his fiancé’s parents, it’s nothing compared to the nerves he feels on his wedding day when he awakes to discover a sheep dressed in drag, a bag full of cocaine, a gun, and only a few hours to get rid of it all. 

From the director of Priscilla Queen of the Desert and the writer of Death at a Funeral, A Few Best Men is a film that is not without its occasional charm and moments of comedic entertainment, but ultimately a movie that I just didn’t find as amusing as it’s been cracked up as being. To be honest, I found this film to be confused. Just confused. It knew what it wanted to be and the effect on the audience that it wanted to achieve, but it just didn’t know how to get there. It seems shallow to compare it to The Hangover, but that sort of monumental-wedding-fuck-up type film has become almost a genre in itself, and I felt that A Few Best Men tried to be like one of those films, but just did not know how to get to the same heights. It’s practically blasphemous, as this is an Aussie movie, but the mainstream, American, groom-comedy, in the end was the better film (and believe me, it’s hard for me to admit this, being so pro-Aussie-comedy and everything). 

Whilst on holiday, David meets a lovely Australian girl and it’s love at first sight. So he proposes and, soon after returning to England to pick up his mates, David finds himself flying to the Land Down Under for his wedding. If David had nerves about meeting his fiancé’s parents, they are nothing compared to the nerves he feels on his wedding day when he awakes to find a sheep dressed in drag, a bag full of cocaine, a gun, and only a few hours to get rid of it all. 

At the end of the day, I felt that this movie fell down because it was confused. I felt that it was trying to be The Hangover but not quite, thereby keeping the subtle Aussie comedy, most of which I did not understand. There was a fair amount of crudity and racism flying throughout this film and, although I usually praise the Aussies for their ability to take the piss out of ourselves, that comedy felt out of place in a story like this. 

The basic story had potential, there were some very nice messages about the institution of family and the forms that it can take, sticking by your mates, and that sort of thing, and there were some very funny moments of comedy, awkwardness, crudeness, and schadenfreude. 

Ultimately, I feel that it was the editing that let the movie down. Everything from the sudden changes in locations to the gags of the script felt thrown in: really jagged and haphazardly. Everything that was funny or important was just thrown in there. And that robbed the film of any smoothness, which might have been handy in the predicaments of the groom and best men, and flowing momentum. It gave the film a stunted feeling, which I don’t much fancy in movies because it’s too close to a block, which then leads to a moment of awkwardness as we work out what to do next. 

Starring Xavier Samuel, Kris Marshall, Rebel Wilson, Laura Brent, Kevin Bishop, Tim Draxl, Jonathan Biggins, and Olivia Newton-John, A Few Best Men is a film that had its moments, but ultimately was very confused and lost. Filled with practically everything from drugs and guns to cross-dressing sheep, it’s a ride, I’ll give it that, though not one that I would go on again straight away.