Shotgun Wedding

Although we're almost past the point of having the stench of death surround movies when they head directly to streaming, that assessment applies to "Shotgun ...

Directed by Jason Moore (“Pitch Perfect”), there are a few fairly impressive stunts (again, all of them in the trailer) sprinkled along the way, such as Darcy and Tom trying to zipline to safety. Duhamel’s Tom, a baseball player, has planned every aspect of his destination wedding to Darcy (Lopez), which is set to take place on a private island. But he won’t until he knows Darcy is safe, as she and Tom awkwardly leap into Rambo mode, fighting a guerrilla war against the pirates while continuing to argue during their down moments. [replace Armie Hammer](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/armie-hammer-exits-lionsgates-shotgun-wedding-4116101/), who left the project in 2021 after problematic accounts regarding his interactions with various women. Even for an action comedy, this Lopez-produced effort is inordinately skewed toward putting everything that might entice someone to watch in the trailer, beginning with the shot of Coolidge hoisting an automatic weapon to defend the wedding party. The casting switch certainly isn’t the problem, although one can quibble with the math on Coolidge playing Duhamel’s mom.

Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel stare down a 'Shotgun Wedding' on Prime Video; Bob Odenkirk ponders a "Life Upside Down"; a French diplomat's reputation is ...

[a strikingly beautiful fusion of earthy realism, dreamy expressionism and underdog melodrama](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-04-01/review-this-is-not-burial-its-resurrection-lesotho), telling the story of an elderly Lesotho villager (Mary Twala Mhlongo) who rouses herself from her deathbed to save the homes and graves of her neighbors and relatives from being destroyed by a new dam. And there’s not enough novelty and creativity in the way the picture was filmed — with the actors isolated in their own locations, handling a lot of the filming themselves — to compensate for the sparse plot. “The Mission” is less about Mormonism or Finland than it is a poignant and relatable portrait of loneliness, taking an intimate look at these good-hearted youngsters, cut off from their culture and their loved ones, who fight — and sometimes fail — to maintain optimism for an assignment that seems impossible. Taking a fly on the wall approach, Anderson watches these kids as they try to bring what they’ve learned in church and in language lessons out into the streets, only to find that they have trouble carrying on long conversations — and that when they do make connections, the Finns would rather talk about the Americans’ personal lives, not their spiritual message. [Bob Odenkirk](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2022-05-17/bob-odenkirk-better-call-saul-final-season)) impetuously starts an affair with political science professor Clarissa (Radha Mitchell), a colleague of one of his most well-heeled customers, Paul (Danny Huston). [“Shotgun Wedding”](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-02-02/josh-duhamel-cast-replaces-armie-hammer-shotgun-wedding) peters out down the stretch, as the explosions and gunfire overwhelm the banter. In “Condor’s Nest,” Jacob Keohane plays Will Spalding, a World War II vet who has spent the decade since the war tracking the Nazi officer who cruelly exterminated Spalding’s bomber crew. Unlike horror films, crime pictures, action-thrillers and even westerns, war movies aren’t a common genre for lower-budget productions anymore — perhaps because it’s hard to stage armed combat on the cheap. But Blattenberger can write punchy dialogue; he also wisely spends some of his money on ace character actors Michael Ironside, James Urbaniak, Jorge Garcia and Bruce Davison, each of whom pops up for a memorable scene or two. Director Jérôme Salle’s stirring melodrama dramatizes the escalating nightmare experienced by Mathieu (Gilles Lellouche), a French diplomat whose life in Siberia is upended when rumors spread that he’s a child-abusing pedophile. The action-comedy comes on way too strong in its opening 20 minutes, introducing an all-star cast in gratingly overstuffed scenes, featuring a surfeit of fast-paced, amped-up chatter. When her new fiancé — a failed pro baseball player, Tom (Duhamel) — invites both their large families to an over-elaborate island wedding, Darcy starts panicking again.

"Shotgun Wedding" is a chocolate-covered cherry with liqueur inside. It starts as a glossy but merely serviceable romantic comedy about a couple who both ...

[Howard Hawks](/cast-and-crew/howard-hawks) screwball romances like "Bringing Up Baby," in which a leopard wanders through periodically, the main couple clings to a collapsing dinosaur skeleton, and [Cary Grant](/cast-and-crew/cary-grant) ends up wearing a woman's silk robe and shouts, "I just went gay all of a sudden!" as well as catchphrase-laden lines that are too Hollywood-writers-room (like "Dad is a messy bitch who loves the drama" and "Pirates chasing you wasn't on your vision board?" [Mark Hammer](/cast-and-crew/mark-hammer) and filmmaker [Jason Moore](/cast-and-crew/jason-moore) (a film and TV veteran who directed "Avenue Q" and " [Steel Magnolias](/reviews/steel-magnolias-1989)" on Broadway, as well as " [Pitch Perfect](/reviews/pitch-perfect-2012)") have a sure touch with their leads and get sharp supporting performances from the secondary cast. But the performers are such fierce comic presences that we accept them as a couple of lovable kids who have a lot to learn about relationships. Still, the specificity of the characterizations and subsequent plot twists upend that expectation: everyone in this film is a bit of a kook, including the bad guys. There are also the concerns of Darcy's fiancé Tom ( [Josh Duhamel](/cast-and-crew/josh-duhamel)), a washed-up minor-league baseball player; the insinuating entitlement of Darcy's ex-lover Sean ( [Lenny Kravitz](/cast-and-crew/lenny-kravitz)), who wasn't invited but showed up anyway; the awkward energy of Darcy's divorced mom and dad, Roberto and Renata ( [Cheech Marin](/cast-and-crew/cheech-marin) and [Sônia Braga](/cast-and-crew/s%C3%B4nia-braga)), which informs the bride's anxieties; and the sprightly middle-American cluelessness of Tom's parents Carol and Larry ( [Jennifer Coolidge](/cast-and-crew/jennifer-coolidge) and [Steve Coulter](/cast-and-crew/steve-coulter)).

Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel talk about what it was like shooting their action scenes for Shotgun Wedding in a new featurette.

Lopez in turn had nothing but praise for Moore, saying that she felt like she and Duhamel were in good hands during their more dangerous stunts, such as the high-flying moment on the zipline. They also get into the trust that they had to have in one another while shooting their action scenes. In the featurette, Lopez and Duhamel — both of whom are staples of both the action and the romantic genres — talk about how the combination of comedy and heart-pounding action drew them to the project.

The movie critics are saying "Shotgun Wedding," starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel, "feels canned," but is "pretty good" and "enjoyably goofy."

"Lopez, a much much better actress than she is often given credit, tries valiantly — and physically — to make it all fly, even at the point she is virtually forced to turn into a commando in a wedding dress. "Against the odds, the expectations and the run of play, here is a romcom starring Jennifer Lopez and it’s … Clearly though she’s having a blast, and that may be enough for the audience to go right along with her." For the most part, though, this is a slapdash effort on most every level, seemingly sold almost entirely on the notion of watching Lopez run through the jungle in a tattered wedding dress." "There are a few fairly impressive stunts (again, all of them in the trailer) sprinkled along the way, such as Darcy and Tom trying to zipline to safety. Much of the dialogue feels canned and phony in the style of a badly written sitcom. well, it’s pretty good: enjoyably goofy and sparkily written." The actress gamely tries to overcome the script's tonal whiplash, but she ultimately gets upstaged by co-stars D'Arcy Carden, Lenny Kravitz and the deadpan Jennifer Coolidge, who leads her fellow hostages in a singalong of Edwin McCain's "I'll Be" in the movie's best moment." ""Shotgun Wedding' is one of the more unsettling rom-coms in recent memory, with lengthy scenes of frantic wedding guests running from armed attackers, and JLo dropping grenades on pirates as she ziplines through a jungle. The movie stars Lopez and Josh Duhamel, who play a couple preparing for a destination wedding in the Philippines. As a couple whose destination wedding is interrupted by hostage-taking pirate-terrorists, the two bicker and banter with classic screwball brio, with a love-hate rapport that is both delightful and effortlessly convincing. [Jennifer Coolidge makes her TikTok debut with JLo](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/01/20/jennifer-coolidge-tiktok-jenny-from-the-block-jennifer-lopez/11088544002/) [USA TODAY](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/02/11/jennifer-lopez-romantic-comedies-marry-me-gigli-wedding-planner-ranked/6730440001/)

Mitchell Travers (who was also the costume designer for "Hustlers") breaks down the entire series of custom gowns in the rom-com-meets-action movie.

"I was in some tiny bridal shop and saw a tiered tulle under-structure. [Carolina Herrera](https://fashionista.com/designers/carolina-herrera) mini dress, featuring a sculpturally draped train (above) — "so, we can tell that she likes a strapless silhouette," says Travers. But in an effort to do the right thing, she's tried to make it Darcy's by dropping it off-the-shoulder. "At the time, a lot of the world was not really up and running. Travers opted for a "champagne blush color," because Lopez always looks radiant in that hue. "I almost had to time out when I was going to tell Galia that the dress gets shredded, because you want to respect the art that they produce," he says. "In conversation with Jen, she was like, 'I just really need to be overwhelmed by it." Scott on 2014's "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." Has she cut off the overskirt?" "When does she lose the train? "It really needed to go through an entire film's worth of action and adventure." [Jennifer Coolidge](https://fashionista.com/tag/jennifer-coolidge)) and ex-boyfriend Sean ( [Lenny Kravitz](https://fashionista.com/tag/lenny-kravitz)), who neglected to RSVP.

Starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel as the lead couple, "Shotgun Wedding" is a romantic action-comedy film that tries too hard to be funny. Jennifer.

Tom had his doubts about Sean, and to confirm his hunch, he used the slur at the pirates that Darcy had taught him the previous night. They would never want to face the danger that they did on their wedding day, but at the same time, they could not dismiss the lessons they learned when their lives were in danger. He and the pirates pressured Tom to give up Darcy’s location, and he pointed them in the wrong direction by stating that Darcy might be at the northern cliff. While she was still mad at Tom for choosing the island, she owned up to her mistake of not discussing her fears about the wedding. The pirates brought him to the pool and questioned him about Darcy. Tom promised to find a solution, and they headed to the kitchen to remove the hand ties. Tom tackled the pirate that followed them into the kitchen, and they headed to the manager’s room. Darcy asked Tom to meet her in private, and Tom assumed that she was calling him to end the wedding. She had seen him do it with his career, and she knew he would do the same with his personal life. What Happened To Darcy And Tom In The End? Darcy and Tom tried to spray the pirate’s eyes and trap him in a net, but due to a lack of coordination and extreme panic, their plan failed. The pirates were desperately searching for the bride and groom, and they caught hold of them in the washroom.

Yes, Lopez, the seminal creative figure wowing us ever since 1997's game-changer Anaconda returns to the fray as a thwarted bride whose luxury wedding in the ...

Yes, Lopez, the seminal creative figure wowing us ever since 1997’s game-changer Anaconda returns to the fray as a thwarted bride whose luxury wedding in the Philippines turns into a warzone when a group of pirates take the guests hostage. Yes, Die Hard ass-kicking at a luxury resort wedding is the sincere promise that Jason Moore’s action comedy makes, and having recently taken up my tenure as Emeritus Professor of Jennifer Lopez studies at the University of Please Yourself, California, I’m delighted to report that these promises made are promises kept. I guess she’s a little late, but welcome to the party, pal, because that’s the perfect formula for undemanding entertainment as the bracingly daft Shotgun Wedding drops on Amazon Prime in the UK and elsewhere.