Rob Reviews "Bride Hard"

So… Bride Hard.

I feel like the elevator pitch for this was “let’s get the director of Con Air (Simon West) and give him the premise of Bridesmaids but tell him we want a Die Hard (hence the name) flavor to it.  GO!”.  And it pretty much is that, but it also doesn’t live up to any of those.

Rebel Wilson plays Sam, an internation woman of mystery (pun intended) who is trying to balance her “secret identity” with being the maid of honor to her lifelong best friend, Betsy (Anna Camp, and yes, they were in the Pitch Perfect movies together, and those are still better than this).  When Sam is benched after an operation in Paris goes south after she takes the entire bridesmaid squad there with her, she gets relegated to non-maid of honor.  As she gets to the palatial estate owned by Betsy’s groom’s (Sam Huntington) family in Savannah, Georgia, the ceremony is taken over by a group of mercenaries led by Kurt (Stephen Dorff), and it’s up to Sam to decide whether or not to expose who she really is in order to save the day.

And yes, you read ALL of that correctly.

The mold of a film like this (but is there really a mold for a film like this?) has all of the elements intact: the frazzled bride, her domineering future sister-in-law (Anna Chlumsky, who DOES have a funny inside joke that you may miss), the over-the-top-sexualized college friend (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the pregnant friend that is still sassy (Gigi Zumbado from this year’s Heart Eyes) the sexy best man who eyes Sam (Justin Hartley), and the snooty mother-in-law (Colleen Camp, who is also a producer).  Even the bad guys are stock, but Dorff is such a pro at this type of role that he makes it work.

Even though West’s involvement piqued my interest a bit, I also had to remind myself that he also did Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which this film is closer to than Con Air or The General’s Daughter.  I just could not be sold by “Rebel Wilson: Action Hero” even in a way that could have been done like Melissa McCarthy in Spy.  The stunt work done for her character is not edited well at all, which really took me out of things even from the start.  The script also has its share of standard quips, but they are so shoehorned in that I found myself shaking my head A LOT.

There is more cheese here than the average Wisconsin town, but that also does not do Bride Hard any favors.  This is the kind of film that is good for those wanting a “girls’ night out,” but not much more than that.  If you drag a date to this thing, be prepared to give up rights to the next film you watch together.  You have been warned.