Review of “Made of Honour”
Four jokes and a wedding are about the sum contents of this mostly lame, occasionally cute romantic-comedy, which borrows so heavily from its superior predecessors that you might think you were watching scenes cut straight from somewhere else. The movie’s predictability is only matched by the trouble the writers had squeezing any humour out of either the dreary characters or the inevitable situations they find themselves in.
Tom (Patrick Dempsey) is wealthy, handsome and has no problems finding beautiful girlfriends. Used to years of waking up in different bedrooms each day of the week, he has developed a series of rules that govern his privileged bachelor life, one of which is to spend Sundays with his best friend Hannah (Michelle Monaghan). Hannah, it seems, is the only person who is really honest with Tom, and he looks forward to her company on his one day off. It’s only when she heads to Scotland for a six week work trip that he realises his true feelings for her, and he decides to do something about it when she returns. Of course she comes back with an even wealthier, more handsome Scottish nobleman (Kevin McKidd) on her arm and a diamond ring on her finger. Tom is appointed Maid of Honour, and must help Hannah prepare for the lavish wedding that is planned to take place in Scotland.
Dempsey is best known for his TV role as the sexy Doctor Shepherd in Grey’s Anatomy, and he and Monaghan manage to create something resembling fondness for the central relationship of the film, despite the lines they’re given. Love? Well, I’m not sure about that. The woefully tedious first half of the film in New York kills most of the emotion, and is padded out with some dreadful scenes of Tom and his basketball playing pals discussing how best to deal with the problems of relationships. Once the action moves to Scotland, English director Paul Weiland (who has some Mr. Bean and Blackadder credits to his name) seems more at home with the genre, and both the pace and the humour gain a little momentum. Amongst the beautiful highland scenery, we at last find some true comic characters in the form of the ancient Scottish family who are hosting the wedding, along with some ancient Scottish jokes. Ultimately though, the highly derivative screenplay is beyond much salvation – forget things new and blue at this wedding flick, there’s only the old and the borrowed.
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