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Movie Plot |
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For Tom (Patrick Dempsey), life is good - he's sexy and successful, not to mention he can always rely on his best friend Hannah (Michelle Monaghan). When she goes to Scotland on a business trip, Tom is stunned at how empty life is without her. He resolves to propose to her when she returns but is floored when she becomes engaged to a handsome and wealthy Scotsman and plans to move overseas. Tom agrees to be her 'maid' of honor but only so he can try to woo Hannah and stop the wedding before it's too late.
User's Review and Ratings |
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What I loved most: Insight into the Scotish culture and its country side scenes
What I really hated: Predictable ending
Don't expect much from this rom-coms since it uses the same formula with its earlier predecessors. The film is in fact like a cross between Julia Robert's My Best Freind's Wedding and Runaway Bride - Hollywood has no more fresh idea I guess or just want to play safe by using the same formula in their productions. In this film, Tom (PATRICK DEMPSEY) is a bed hopping playboy who realised it too late that the woman he really loves is his best freind from university, Hannah (MICHELE MONAGHAN). When he was asked by Hannah to be her Maid of Honour for her wedding to a Duke from Scotland, Tom set a plan to stop the wedding at all cost ala Julia Roberts in My Best Freind Wedding. He even arrived at the Scotish country side chappel riding a horse, just like Julia Roberts did in Runaway Bride... The film ending is rather predictable - the damsel chose the bed hoping playboy to be his partner rather then marrying a Duke. I would prefer if the film ending would be different. Acting wise, both the leads have the right on screen chemistry and the supporting casts are also memorable. Despite being demonised by Hollywood in this film, I found that the Scotish culture and country side potrayed in this film is rather interesting - perhaps the saving grace for the film I would say. Strictly for rom-coms fan, skip this film if you have watched My Best Freind Wedding.
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CO's Review |
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One highlight of this movie is a scene where Patrick Dempsey, who plays Tom, juggles crockery made of fine china. It figures, since he was once a junior juggling champion and at one point, had aspired to go to Clown College. That aside, the rest of his antics and clowning around in the film mostly fell flat.
To reference recent rom-coms, "Made Of Honour" is more of a froth-fest like "27 Dresses" than a meaningful, 'guys' romance like "Definitely, Maybe". The story is the same old, same old, with slightly different locales and of course, different actors playing the leads. From the very beginning, as the male and female leads first meet, you know that no matter what happens in the course of 90 minutes, at the end they will end up together. Because they have to, right?
Patrick Dempsey, bless his heart, is better suited for TV dramas. That pizzazz he has on the smaller screen just doesn't quite translate to the big screen in the same way. At times he seems too generic and well...boring. All his lines are well-written and there is witty dialogue with perfect timing...but it all seems too perfect and fairytale-like. After all, he did do well in "Enchanted", but for a more adult, gritty love story, he just doesn't cut it for me.
Michelle Monaghan as the girl-next-door Hannah is wonderful. She has the same genuine, down to earth glow that Katherine Heigl has, and everything she says and does oozes sweetness. She definitely has great onscreen chemistry with Dempsey, but at times she appears a tad too naive and trusting as opposed to Heigl's cynicism and wit in "27 Dresses", so at the end of the day, "Honour" is to "Dresses" like "Equal" is to sugar - an artificial replacement and too sickly sweet.
Also, the American tendency to demonise everything they see as foreign to them gets to be a little over the top here, when Hannah, Tom and friends head over to Scotland days before Hannah's wedding (she's set to marry a Scottish Duke at this point). Tom is there to infiltrate the wedding and "steal the bride". They make Scotland out to be some bizarre, carnival-esque place where the people are all red-haired and homely (read: "ugly"). The stereotyping doesn't end there, with displays of the Scots' bad fashion sense and inedible cuisine being the butt of all jokes from there on in. How utterly xenophobic of them!
Another thing that truly grated on me, other than the lack of respect for other people's culture, is the fact that the character of Hannah happily eats meat, but fumes over a handbag made of baby alligator skin and practically has a hernia when she learns that the venison she is eating was hunted and killed by her would-be husband, the Scottish duke. Can you say "hypocrite"??
Combined with the unsatisfactory, hackneyed ending, this film ends up being way too superficial and well, simple. Honestly, and without truly spoiling anything for you, I would have preferred it if they had all been grown up about it, where Hannah marries the Scottish dude and Tom sucks it up and deals with it. That would have been more realistic, intelligent and thought-provoking than this butter-wouldn't-melt flick that delivers some cheap laughs and no real substance.
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![]() Richmond Arquette | ![]() Kevin McKidd | ![]() Patrick Dempsey | ||
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