Leave ‘Made’ at the altar

In “Made of Honor,” Patrick Dempsey plays a swinging bachelor who – hold on to your funny bones here, lest they shatter from impact – agrees to be the MAID of honor at his platonic gal pal's wedding. Yeah, it's a bad pun. Nonsensical, even. But that doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the movie itself, right? Look at “Good Will Hunting” – horrendous pun, Oscar-winning screenplay.

Sadly, in the case of “Made of Honor,” the lamebrained label is wholly and accurately reflective of the product within. In a near-plagiaristic, gender-flipped version of Julia Roberts' matrimonial saboteur in “My Best Friend's Wedding,” Dempsey plays Tom, a rich Manhattan playboy whose no-strings attitude toward sex is manifested in a series of insipid “rules”: Never sleep with the same woman on back-to-back nights, always wait at least two days before calling, etc.

In any recognizable human universe, Tom would be insufferable, but screenwriters Adam Sztykiel and Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont (the ultra-hackish duo behind “Surviving Christmas” and “Josie and the Pussycats”) blindly deploy him like the irresistibly devilish charmer he clearly isn't. He's more like a lazy amalgam of deodorant-commercial manhood – the kind of guy who can't say the word “love” and only reveals his true feelings while playing hoops with pals.

He's a stereotype, the male equivalent of the purse-dog ditz. The thing, theoretically, that allows us to suffer this oversexed fool is his unique and special friendship with Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), a sassy tomboy whom he tried and failed to woo in college.

Tom is content with Hannah's nonsexual companionship and their ritualized weekends of antiquing and breakfasting until she meets Colin (Kevin McKidd from “Rome”), a hale-and-hearty Scottish blue blood who immediately inflames Tom's competitive instincts and makes him realize, finally, that Hannah is the girl for him.

The rest is a muddled, half-humored mixture of role reversal and romantic espionage, as Tom faithfully executes his duties as Hannah's maid of honor (gift baskets on poker night – so cute!) while trying to scuttle her betrothal “from the inside.”

Yes, it's conniving and cowardly, but not terribly edgy – even when journeyman director Paul Weiland (“City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold”) turns to Colin's equine endowments to make Tom feel even more inadequate.

Like all bad romantic comedies, “Made of Honor” takes a wild stab at psycho-romantic insight; in this case, that means making Hannah's
matrimonial future contingent on a plot point involving what appears to be chocolate devil's food.

And that just takes the cake. Horrendous pun intended.


“Made of Honor”
Stars: Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin McKidd
Behind the scenes: Director Paul Weiland, from a script by Adam Sztykiel and Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont
Rated: PG-13 (sexual content and language)
Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Grade: D