Shotgun Wedding – Film Review

Darcy and Tom gather their families for a destination wedding, but the ceremony gets put on hold when gunmen take everyone hostage. Now, they must do everything they can to save their loved ones — if they don’t wind up killing each other first.

Despite the month of January being exceptionally good to us film fans so far, it appears we have finally found a movie that’s rather terrible in the form of Shotgun Wedding, directed by Jason Moore, whose previous film Sisters wasn’t too impressive, either, sadly.

It’s a shame because Moore’s directorial debut was Pitch Perfect, which is one of my all-time favorite comfort films that ended up spawning an entire franchise. Seriously, where did all of Moore’s talent go? Shotgun Wedding is now the second film in a row of his that fails to be funny and instead, is a deeply annoying movie where a whole lot of nothing happens.

It’s nice that the film kind of starts off right in the middle of the action so there’s no real set-up act here, but that doesn’t mean the film is good. The script by Mark Hammer feels like one that was written without any sort of care or precision. A first draft script if you will.

This may sound a bit odd but I’m sure you’ll know exactly what I mean. This is the kind of movie that middle-aged moms will go to see late at night for a girl’s night out with some friends just to see the central romance and stare at the attractive leads and be persuaded into thinking it’s a good movie simply because of that.

Jennifer Lopez is obviously an extremely talented person, but her performance here as Darcy is just downright awful. She looks and feels like she’s bored out of her mind the entire time. Did she only accept this role for the paycheck? It wouldn’t make a lot of sense considering how much of an A-lister she is, but if that wasn’t the reason, then what was?

This film also stars Josh Duhamel as a man named Tom, who essentially serves as the romantic love interest for Jennifer Lopez’s character. Even though Duhamel himself is fine in this movie, it was certainly a little bizarre to see a man in his fifties portraying a character that acts like a drunken twenty-year-old. Long story short – his character drove me up the wall.

Of course, seeing as how this movie is marketed as a bit of a blend between an action and romantic comedy film, you’d probably expect to see some entertaining action beats along the way. We do get some sprinkled throughout but they’re never anything amazing.

That’s not to say that they’re not decent enough – because they are – but they could’ve easily been significantly better. If you’ve never seen a proper action movie in your entire life, then you’ll probably think the action on display here is stellar, but seasoned veterans won’t be in store for any new thrills.

This is definitely the kind of movie that I’d expect to see either in a Walmart bargain bin at the end of the year for two dollars or the kind of movie that somebody will be giving away for free at a garage sale when it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray this summer. It’s certainly not something to swoon over.

Shotgun Wedding is a maddeningly annoying romantic action comedy from Jason Moore, where not even its lead stars Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel look like they’re enjoying themselves.