Review: Bride Hard tries hard but misses mark

Back in 2007, the Vanity Fair columnist and provocateur, Christopher Hitchens attempted to argue that women aren’t funny. It did not go down well but I was reminded of it watching the new action-comedy Bride Hard that he might have been more successful if he’d narrowed his aim – “Rebel Wilson isn’t funny” would be very hard to argue with on this evidence.

The film reunites Wilson with another star of the hugely successful Pitch Perfect series, Anna Camp, as best friends from childhood, now somewhat estranged due to Wilson’s career as a secret agent taking her away on dangerous missions at inopportune moments.

As we meet everyone, we discover that the bridal shower for Camp’s forthcoming nuptials has been relocated to Paris so Wilson can intercept a chemical weapons handover but even then, she can’t stay connected to the party for long. Fired as Maid of Honour and replaced by the groom’s overpowering sister, Anna Chlumsky, Wilson’s Sam is resigned to losing her best friend but keeping her career. Until her handler, played by Sherry Cola, forces her to take some time off, that is.

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Bride Hard is the second comedy this year set during a wedding on a private island in the Savannah Georgia everglades. Earlier on this year, Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell starred in You’re Cordially Invited in which the threats to the wedding were alligators and each other.

This time it’s heavily armed gangsters, led by '90s heartthrob Stephen Dorff. Well, they start out as gangsters but then turn into a drug cartel and ultimately international terrorists – their motivations are as confused as the rest of the story.

In the spirit of the Bruce Willis film that lent Bride Hard its name, Sam alone has to use her improvisational violence skills to take out the bad guys one by one and free the hostages.

This is clearly a vehicle for Ms. Wilson, the Australian comic performer who made her name testing the limits of screen vulgarity in wedding-themed films like Bridesmaids and A Few Best Men, and between her and her stunt double she proves game for the action side of things.

Unfortunately, the script by Sheina Steinberg and whatever improvisational efforts that are made by the cast, don’t find any depth in the relationships and if there’s no depth then the humour just bobs around on the surface hoping to make landfall somewhere before it sinks.

Director Simon West made his name with one of the '90s finest action films, Con Air starring Nicolas Cage and John Cusack, but he’s been nothing more than a journeyman ever since and Bride Hard doesn’t do anything to change that trajectory.

I shouldn’t be too critical of this one, as the cast are working hard – Academy Award winner Da’vine Joy Randolph from The Holdovers in particular.

But this is a cheap idea that’s poorly executed. I can say that it’s not the worst film in the world … but that’s about it.