Made of Honor

Review By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

His Grey’s Anatomy co-star Katherine Heigl did it in 27 Dresses, now Patrick Dempsey tackles the wedding-themed romantic comedy with Made of Honor. The two flicks play out almost like companion pieces—one about a woman longing to settle down with the right guy, the other about a man with commitment-phobia who doesn’t want to settle down period. That is, until he realizes he’s in love with his best friend. Both films follow the rom-com formula to a tee, and both films I, of course, thoroughly enjoyed.

I can hear the groans from here. The sharp tongues of the critics clicking in disdain over Made of Honor's predictability. But I don’t care because Patrick Dempsey is the lead and he’s just plain irresistible. He found his niche as the mature romantic leading man on Grey’s Anatomy and has since parlayed different variations of that onto the big screen. In Made of Honor, he changes it up slightly. Instead of playing husband-material, his character is a noncommittal playboy.

Tom has a bunch of women at his beck and call and a set of relationship rules that prevents him from getting too close to any of them. The one decent relationship in his life is his friendship with Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), seemingly the only girl who didn’t fall into bed with him in college. She works at an art museum and she’s got a brain in her head. Thing is, Tom is too stupid to realize he’s in love with her until it’s (almost) too late.

When Hannah goes away on business to Scotland for six weeks, Tom discovers his life is completely off-balance without her. He plans to tell her exactly how he feels the day she gets back, but is instead met with an unpleasant surprise. Hannah has gotten engaged to a Scottish Duke named Colin (Kevin McKidd) and she asks Tom to be her maid of honor. He accepts, though he and his buddies secretly plan to wreck the wedding from within.

Although the movie makes it seem like Tom can’t compare to Colin, it’s really no contest. Kevin McKidd’s hair is no match for McDreamy’s.

The film succeeds at some funny bits of physical comedy. A good pratfall never fails to make me laugh (especially when it looks like it hurts). James Marsden did it to perfection in Enchanted when a group of cyclists run down his singing prince, and Dempsey gets his chance in this movie when he sends a waiter crashing to the floor, twice. He also courageously dons a too-short kilt and goes sailing head first into the doors of a church in the end.

The film’s biggest misstep