It's a 'Pitch Perfect' reunion directed by Simon West, with Wilson playing a secret agent attending her childhood best friend's (Anna Camp) wedding when it's attacked by armed mercenaries.
When a movie is so terrible that you start to suspect you're in for a bad time before the title even plays, you cling to the small, fun details you find, like pieces of driftwood in a shipwreck.
Director: Simon West
Writers: Shaina Steinberg, Cece Pleasants
Stars: Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Stephen Dorff
So: Da'Vine Oscar winner Joy Randolph deserves far more than her small supporting role in Bride Hard, but she's respectably willing to serenade an unborn baby with "My Neck, My Back" or brazenly flirt with a clergyman. Justin Hartley delivers some good moments of physical comedy as an arrogant jerk who mistakenly believes he's a tough guy.
The heroine Sam (Rebel Wilson), describing her bridesmaid look as "like Ariana Grande joined Real Housewives" and "like the dancing emoji," is funny and on point. Her use of curling irons as makeshift nunchucks is ingenious, though she loses a point for the uninspired "Oh no, your masturbating hand!" when she burns a thug with one.
Finally, I found it funny when a henchman mentions his job as a wedding singer. Not that we actually see him perform or anything. It's just a detail unexpected enough to be amusing.
That aside, the Simon West-directed action-comedy is a tedious use of 105 minutes: laugh-scarred, thrill-scarred, and unemotional.
The plot (screenplay by Cece Pleasants and Shaina Steinberg) is most efficiently described as "Bridesmaids meets Die Hard." In less economic terms, it's about a secret agent named Sam who struggles to balance his work and personal life and has a lone wolf mentality. His only friend is Betsy (Anna Camp, giving it her all), his childhood friend, and even that connection has been strained due to Sam's habit of disappearing suddenly and inexplicably, as demonstrated in the opening scene where Sam sneaks away from Betsy's bachelorette party for an urgent mission.
However, Sam manages to arrive at Betsy's wedding, which is being held at a private island estate owned by her future in-laws. His presence proves to be a blessing when, just minutes into the ceremony, the place is invaded by armed mercenaries (Stephen Dorff plays their leader). As the bridal party and their guests panic inside the mansion, Sam puts his skills to the test, prowling the property and eliminating the bad guys one by one.
In terms of premise, it's not bad. And in terms of cast, it's surprisingly good. In addition to all the actors mentioned, Sherry Cola appears as Nadine, Sam's coworker, and Anna Chlumsky as Virginia, Betsy's uptight, passive-aggressive future sister-in-law.
This only makes the sloppy and tedious result all the more disconcerting. Instead of a first act that allows us to get to know these characters and their relationships well enough to care about them, we're immediately plunged into a confusing chase through the streets of Paris. At least Love Hurts, one of this year's so-bad-it-looks-fake action comedies, was partially redeemed by some solid action. The fights and explosions are too choppy and chaotic to be admired.
The clever touches range from boring to downright annoying: "Piece of cake!" Sam jokes after confronting a thug near a dessert we never see destroyed, which prompted me to draw the "😐" emoji in my notes. The visuals are excessively superficial, with everyone looking too glossy and retouched to be real, but also monotonous, as the backgrounds of this supposedly luxurious mansion appear cheap and generic. For some reason, even the cat photos (Sam's backstory is that she designs pedestals for feline award shows) aren't very attractive.
But Bride Hard's most unforgivable sin is its complete disregard for its characters, who are so shallow they could easily be cardboard cutouts. The only person with any discernible personality is Sam, and she's defined as a terrible friend, even setting aside the lies and confusion imposed by her job. She humiliates Virginia at the rehearsal dinner for no reason and tries to dissuade Betsy from her wedding seconds before she walks down the aisle, insisting that "this isn't you" and invoking a childhood pact never to marry. (The mere hints that these two might be a little gay for each other go nowhere.)
Despite multiple "Pitch Perfect" episodes serving as proof that Wilson and Camp do, in fact, know each other, here they have the chemistry of two complete strangers.
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