Since February is a short month and the month of love, I’m going to attempt to do daily romantic comedy reviews for the entire month. I don’t usually watch a lot of romcoms so some of these movies may be very old. But we’re going to start out with a new one - Shotgun Wedding, which was released on Amazon Prime on January 27.
Tom (Josh Duhamel) and Darcy (Jennifer Lopez) are having a destination wedding. They have gathered all of their family members on a private island in The Philippines. As the bride and groom are getting ready, a band of pirates attacks the rest of the guests, taking them all hostage. They demand a ransom from Darcy’s father, Robert (Cheech Marin). Unbeknownst to everyone, Tom and Darcy are actually arguing, debating whether or not they actually want to get married. When they find out their loved ones are in danger, they work together to save everyone’s lives, reigniting their love along the way.
To be honest, I expected this to be a stupid movie. As I said earlier, I don’t watch a lot of romcoms and the ones starring Jennifer Lopez always seem to be terrible. Imagine how happy I was when I found myself actually enjoying Shotgun Wedding! I think what held it together for me was the ensemble cast. Instead of everything focusing on Darcy and Tom, we had comedy heavyweights Jennifer Coolidge and Cheech Marin alongside the extremely talented D’Arcy Carden, the often-forgotten talent of Melissa Hunter, and the over-the-top acting of Lenny Kravitz. Since the movie split its’ time between the couple and their families, there was a lot more meat to its’ bones.
I wanted to list my favorite parts of the movie here but I’m having a difficult time pinning down one or two moments. The fight scene at the end is pretty cool. So is the zipline scene and the fight in the kitchen. And so is the scene where Darcy confronts her family. I would probably have an easier time listing the things I didn’t like about the movie…though there aren’t a lot of those moments either. I don’t think I would put this as a 5 out of 5 movie but it’s definitely a 4 out of 5.