Our Family Wedding - Fox Searchlight Pictures
What happens when you mix “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” with a dash of “Bachelor Party”. You get an absolute train wreck in “Our Family Wedding”. There will surely be few films that are worse in 2010.
The whole premise of “Our Family Wedding” is to see how many stereotypes of blacks and Hispanics they can cram into one movie. It starts practically from the beginning when dj playboy Brad Boyd (Forest Whitaker) tries to stop his car from being towed by Miguel Ramirez (Carlos Mencia). Brad assumes almost from the bat that Miguel can’t speak English. This starts an excruciating heated conversation where Miguel calls Brad brother and Brad refers to Miguel as cuz. The type of humor displayed here wasn’t funny twenty years ago. During the process of towing, Miguel has a lot of trouble hooking up the car. Wouldn’t a person who owns a company that tows cars know how to do this like it was second nature? These sorts of details will drive any sane person mad.
What are the chances that Miguel and Brad meet up again? The odds are 100% of course. Brad is the father of med student Marcus (Lance Gross), while Miguel is the father of law student Lucia (America Ferrera). Marcus and Lucia announce to their respective families over dinner that they are getting married. This is not before Brad and Miguel get into another verbal jousting match. It is not funnier the second time around.
Some of the members of each respective family are wary of the couple marrying outside of their race. Admittedly this is an issue that still crops up across this country. It though feels quite dated here. Lupe Ontiveros has made a healthy living playing disapproving grandmothers. It is no different here. She spends most of the movie muttering under her breath in Spanish that Marcus isn’t Hispanic.
There really aren’t any surprises to be had. Separate crises put a crimp in the wedding plans and causes tension in Miguel’s marriage. If you think these won’t be easily resolved in the end, you will be sorely mistaken. In a related area, Regina King portrays a long time family friend of Brad and Marcus. She is like an aunt to Marcus and a trusted confidant to Brad. I probably don’t even to have to hint at what will happen to her character. It is that predictable.
Both families eventually take over planning the wedding. Each one wants a piece of their heritage involved in the ceremony. As usual it doesn’t go as expected. Hilarity ensues. No, not really. A goat is brought in to be sacrificed because apparently that happens all the time at Mexican weddings. The goat gets into pills that it shouldn’t have and audiences will actually look fondly back to an animal scene in “Bachelor Party”.
“Our Family Wedding” just isn’t funny. It doesn’t start out well and goes quickly downhill from there. This is one movie about a wedding that may encourage people not to go down the aisle.
Our Family Wedding (2010)
Genre: Comedy
Release Date: 12 March, 2010 (Showtimes and Tickets)
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
