C+

Here’s a perfect example of a movie that might have been a winner at ninety minutes being dragged out to two hours and collapsing in the final stretch. Unabashedly raunchy without getting utterly grotesque about it (the way, for example, “Meet the Fockers” did), and with a squishy soft heart beating beneath its crass exterior, “Wedding Crashers” is a bawdy buddy movie that will win no prizes for subtlety but gets its fair share of laughs until the third act, when its ne’er-do-well heroes inevitably go soft and redeem themselves and a most unwelcome guest star appears to offer an extraordinarily tiresome cameo. That whole redemption spiel should ideally be wrapped up as quickly as possible, but here it’s prolonged to such length that the movie threatens never to end. That’s a pity, because until that miscalculation, “Crashers” is rather like this year’s “Dodgeball”–stupid and ribald but amiably funny. Unfortunately, all’s not well that doesn’t end well, as the Bard might have said on a particularly bad day, and the dragged-out resolution lets the good will the movie had earlier engendered drain away.

The set-up is that long-time work pals goofy, good-natured John (Owen Wilson) and fast-talking, conniving Jeremy (Vince Vaughn) have adopted an annual ritual of going randomly to weddings under assumed names merely in order to pick up unattached women there for quick, no-commitment trysts. Within a few minutes the movie gives us a montage of the guys plying their trade at ceremonies of various faiths and ethnic backgrounds, moderately engaging if hardly uproarious. The basic plot kicks in when the duo prolong their “season” to attend the big bash involving the eldest daughter of Defense Secretary Cleary (Christopher Walken), in the course of which John falls for the secretary’s middle daughter Claire (Rachel McAdams)–who unfortunately already has a fiancé, smarmy (and unfaithful) preppie Sack (Bradley Cooper)–while Jeremy finds himself stuck with the youngest, Gloria (Isla Fisher), an extremely clinging type with whom he made the mistake of having a quickie and who now thinks herself in love with him. A sudden turn takes the guys to the Cleary retreat for a weekend, where the inevitable family weirdness kicks in. The Secretary’s alcoholic wife Kathleen (Jane Seymour) comes on, Mrs. Robinson-style, to John, while foul-mouthed grandma (Ellen Albertini Dow) verbally assaults everyone, especially the girl’s artist brother Todd (Keir O’Donnell), who in turn visits Jeremy’s room to make a pass at him at the very time when the poor fellow has been literally tied to his guest bed by the voracious Gloria. Also on hand are a butler (Ron Canada) who clearly has no use for his employers, and the blissfully ignorant minister (Henry Gibson) who officiated at the earlier ceremony. There are plenty of semi-gross bits of business scattered throughout (like Gloria’s prolonged under-the-table assault on Jeremy during dinner and Todd’s nocturnal declaration of interest in him), but mostly the script centers on the physical abuse the furious Jeremy suffers at virtually every turn and John’s none-too-successful pursuit of Claire (which includes the obligatory scatological sequence in which he feeds Sack a powerful laxative to make him cling to a toilet all night rather than his girlfriend–just think “Dumb and Dumber” revisited).

So far, so good. Unfortunately, the boys’ imposture is revealed by the nasty Sack and they’re ejected from the Cleary homestead, which brings on that protracted last act, in which John is reduced to pining away over Gloria while he and Jeremy have a predictable falling out and that uncredited guest makes his tedious appearance. (It wouldn’t be fair to reveal who it is–suffice it to say it’s a way overexposed star whose turn here, with its familiar frat-school shtick, would have been a weak sketch on “Saturday Night Live”). In the first two-thirds especially, Wilson and Vaughn make a good pair under David Dobkin’s very loose direction, with the former’s laid-back charm playing off nicely against the latter’s machine-gun delivery. McAdams does what one might think impossible under the circumstances–she’s not squeezed off-stage by the male stars, managing to hold her own not by reason of any especially good material but simply because she has an engaging personality. Fisher isn’t nearly as lucky with her high-strung character, nor is Cooper, a sneering caricature of upper-class snobbery, nor Dow, an Irene Ryan wannabe, nor O’Donnell, whose “Addams Family” persona is the occasion for some rather tasteless gay humor. The veterans suffer, too, with Seymour having little to do and Walken too much, given the fact that Secretary Cleary, who’s portrayed as a presidential prospect, quickly turns into a dolt and the actor seems to be coasting on his familiar mannerisms. But Canada has a few good moments as the simmering servant, as does Gibson as the befuddled padre. The picture has been nicely shot in widescreen by Julio Macat, and the music score is agreeably eclectic (the introductory titles, for example, are accompanied by what sounds like a Swingles Singers version of a bit of a Mozart horn concerto).

But the trajectory of “Wedding Chasers” is rather like that of most real weddings, which tend to flag as the evening wears on. While the first ninety minutes or so are sporadically amusing, if hardly classic, the sag of the last thirty leaves one anxious for it all to end. Happily it does, though unhappily pretty much as you expect it will.