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.

"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.

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.