Gently Down the Stream

Robert De Niro's character Don, whose son is about to get married, has a pretty good line in the beginning of THE BIG WEDDING, something having to do with marriage being liken to a phone call at night… First the ring, and then you wake up. Well here we have more of a message – an extremely familiar one at that – spoken on a broken down answering machine. After about twenty frantic minutes of all the characters... including sons, daughters and girlfriends... bickering at each other incessantly, an actual "plot" surfaces: Don and his ex-wife Ellie, played by Diane Keaton, has to pretend to be married (BIRDCAGE, anyone?) in order to please their adopted son's uptight catholic mother, who frowns on divorce. The first of many problems is simply: Who the heck cares about this woman anyway? Robert De Niro, relating back to that initial joke, phones in a lazy performance but his beard fits him well – you can say he looks better now, at the beginning of being legitimately old, than he did ten years ago as an aged version of his younger self. But all his character's flippantly crass humor is more fitting to the young. Spouting Judd Apatow style sexual jokes is awkward and unfunny throughout this muddled mess of a romantic comedy, leading to that big wedding only lasting ten minutes before the film ends quickly. Well that was one prayer answered

I don't even know where to start on how absolutely bad this movie is. I typically only write reviews when a movie is unexpectedly great, or moving in one way or another. But I felt compelled to write a review for this movie, if nothing else than to send a message to Hollywood that viewers are actually smarter then they give us credit. You would think with a movie that features not one, not two, not three but four or more major actors would at least be tolerable. Wrong. Did I miss something, are actors just like the rest of us, living from paycheck to paycheck, barely making end's meet? That's the only excuse that would "maybe" allow me to accept why some of these people took these roles. Or perhaps there was an old "debt" that needed to be repaid to a director or studio? There must be some excuse, because anybody with any kind of preservation for their career would have passed. Robert (De Niro), are you serious? I watched you accept a lifetime achievement award a year or two ago and you went on and on about all the crappy roles you've accepted in recent years (including "Little Fockers", which by the way is head and shoulders about this movie) - and yet here you are again. ??? Please don't tell me YOU need a paycheck too? Bottom line: I would not be completely surprised if this movie wasn't written on the back of a bar napkin at some cheesy off the road place over the period of a couple hours. Character development is extremely shallow and inconsistent and story cohesion and development is about non-existent. Do yourself a favor and watch something else. Anything.

A few funny moments, but overall a waste of time....my wife actually proposed me to watch Iron Man 3 instead....but i was being a "good" husband and said: "No honey, you wanted to watch this one". Halfway through the movie we both agreed that Iron Man would be a better alternative.... So, i'm not against sexual humor (like for example The Hangover) but this one i would recommend you all to skip... Peace out :) BTW i don't like being forced to write 10 lines, unless the movie i am commenting on is worth it :p

The potential was definitely not reached in this film. The script had some lightly sophisticated humor but didn't include as much wit as it could have been successful with. It was a pretty light R rated film, carrying a few sexual jokes and scenes, and a few F bombs. Much of the humor was based on sexual dialog, which might've been okay but it didn't carry any depth, and just had somewhat lame sex jokes. By no means was this a BAD movie, it really wasn't, but it could have been much better. The all-star cast did have some nice on screen chemistry and I liked the charm and wit brought on by the great young actors, namely Topher Grace. (I might be biased because I loved That 70s Show.) I feel like the release of this film was very overshadowed by Pain & Gain, and the marketing and promotion of THIS movie was no where near enough. One thing this film did get right was the trailer. It revealed just enough for you to be intrigued, yet not feel like you know the whole film, so if you think the trailer revealed the whole movie, go ahead and see it and you might be pleasantly surprised. It wasn't bad, but wasn't anything special.