A FEW BEST MEN

Whirlwind Romance

Directed by Stephen Elliot
Starring Xavier Samuels, Olivia Newton-John, Kris Marshall

If you’re a fan of the nail-bitingly cringey humour of The Office and Death At A Funeral, you should definitely save the date for A Few Best Men.
Xavier Samuels (fresh from being a vampire in the Twilight series) plays David, who proposes to fellow backpacker Mia (a desperately overacting Laura Brent) after a whirlwind holiday romance on a remote tropical beach. There’s only one hitch; he lives in England, she lives in Australia, and after they get back from holiday, they’ll spend three months apart before meeting up in Australia the day before the wedding.
After a surprise welcome home party, which he manages to accidentally walk into buck naked, David breaks the news to his friends that he’ll be getting married and leaving England. His best friends range from the mischievous party boy Tom (Kris Marshall) to the gormless Graham (Kevin Bishop) to the recently dumped and almost suicidal Luke (Tim Draxl). Although they have some reservations about their friend settling down into married life, they accompany him on his trip to Sydney, and that’s when the real trouble starts.
Mia’s family are, to put it simply, a bunch of loons. Mia’s father (Jonathan Biggins) is a senator who’s strangely obsessed with his prized ram; her sister (a hilarious Rebel Wilson) is trying to rebel against her family by pretending to be a lesbian; and her mother (Olivia Newton-John) seems perfectly normal - until she gets some alcohol and drugs into her.
There’s a clash of cultures when the boys arrive - Graham refers to Australia as “a nation of pointy-headed sheep fuckers who think culture is yoghurt” - and the mishaps and offensive statements only get worse in the lead up to the big day. From accidentally stealing a bag of cocaine from a deranged drug dealer (Steve LeMarguand), to having to put their hand up the back end of the prized ram, to awkward best man speeches about anal sex, it’s a series of unfortunate events that makes Mia question whether she can really marry someone she barely knows.
While the groomsmen gone wild storyline is more than a little bit reminiscent of The Hangover, A Few Best Men is a fine movie in its own right. Although the premise of the movie is kind of weak - who gets married to a random English backpacker after seeing them for 10 days, even if he is ridiculously handsome? Luckily the hilarious events that follow more than make up for the lack of plot.
Kris Marshall and Kevin Bishop are definitely noteworthy as the odd couple who keep getting themselves into increasingly ludicrous situations, but Olivia Newton-John steals the show as a cocaine-fuelled, champagne-swilling, and generally bad-behaving mother-in-law. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen one of Australia’s national treasures snorting lines of coke Scarface style, dirty dancing and swinging from chandeliers. It’s a pity that lead actors Mia and David have pretty much no chemistry and about as much acting ability as a piece of cardboard.
Taking the romcom genre and mixing it up with some dirty debauchery, A Few Best Men has something for everyone.

_TARA LLOYD