A Few Best Men Review

★1/2☆☆☆

Backpacker David (Xavier Samuel) returns from his travels and announces to his friends that, following a whirlwind holiday romance, he is engaged to Aussie girl Mia (Laura Brent). David’s three best friends are therefore rounded-up, and the foursome makes the long journey down-under for the impromptu wedding.

The groom’s best men: cheese-phobic hypochondriac, Graham (Kevin Bishop); heartbroken and recently single, Luke (Tim Draxl); and the man from the BT adverts, Tom (Kris Marshall) attempt to send their friend off in typically clichéd stag-night style; drinking, smoking cannabis and dressing-up a sheep in lingerie; all the while incurring the displeasure of a mentally-unstable drug dealer along the way.

The film takes the proverb: “with friends like these, who needs enemies?” and stretches it as far as conceivably possible in the hopes of raising a smile. David must juggle the demands of: impressing his new in-laws and seeing his wife safely up the aisle, while simultaneously cleaning up the trail of destruction that his friends inevitably leave behind.

An indication of the level of sophistication on display is present in the film’s first few scenes, and the lazy national stereotyping contained within them. David’s return to his London home, located more-or-less in the middle of a gaggle of famous landmarks, is a grey, rain-soaked affair. After surviving the claustrophobic anonymousness of the London Underground, David stalks through the wet streets of London; dodging discarded beer cans because, well, it rains a lot in Britain, and is entirely populated by miserable alcoholics, obviously.

Australian culture too is “wittily” distilled into a couple of establishing gags. After enduring the long-haul flight, complete with 14 stopovers, the boys arrive in Sydney; whereupon we are presented with the sight of a discarded surfboard, minus, of course, the huge mouthful a local shark has recently claimed.

The comedy becomes no-more interesting, but infinitely louder and cruder as the boy’s hijinks threaten to derail the big day. Father of the bride, Jim’s (Jonathan Biggins) plans to celebrate his daughter’s wedding by foisting his political career upon her go (literally) tumbling over a cliff. Weary mother Barbara (Olivia Newton-John) tires of her husband’s controlling ways and finds solace in a mountain of class-A drugs. Meanwhile pretend-lesbian sister, Daphne (Rebel Wilson) finds herself relegated to the position of smart-alecky window-dressing; surfacing only occasionally to: sneer, blow a raspberry or take another swig of wine.

It is surely the hope of director Stephan Elliott and writer Dean Craig that we find the drink and drugs fuelled antics of the lads charming in some way; that we’ll actively take pleasure in the sight of Mia’s father’s home being trashed and his prize sheep being groped. After all, he does seem to have it in for David, and he is a conservative politician, surely the antithesis of the carefree party-goers we are, presumably, supposed to find adorable.

Any notion of scrutinising the character’s motivations: David’s orphan status, Luke’s recent break-up and subsequent depression or Tom’s unwillingness to allow him to be parted from his best friend is, for the most part, glossed over. In Luke’s case his almost-suicidal despair is used only as a cue for a succession of gags.

The film’s comedic nadir is reached during a protracted scene in which the aforementioned sheep becomes, pardon the pun, an accidental mule. The drugs the poor creature has ingested must be removed from him in as timely a manner as possible, forcing Graham to take the matter ‘in hand’.

There is some joy to be had in seeing Olivia Newton-John take obvious pleasure in a role which sees her spend much of the film’s running-time high as a kite; Australia’s Blue Mountain region looks stunning too, but little else. A Few Best Men looks to capitalise on the bawdy, drunken success of The Hangover films, but never sets its sights higher than a series of crude set-pieces, as the film’s titular band of revellers stagger from one ghastly disaster to the next.