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Rating: 3 stars

All movies seen on 12/18/2011

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Betsy's Wedding (1990)

Directed by Alan Alda

Comedy

Overview

Offbeat fashion student Betsy Hopper and her straight-laced investment-banker fiancé Jake Lovell just want an intimate little wedding reception, but Betsy’s father Eddie, a Long Island construction contractor, feels so threatened by Jake’s rich WASP parents that he blows the ceremony up into a bank-breaking showpiece, sending his wife Lola into a financial panic.

Rated R | Length 94 minutes

Actors

Alan Alda | Joey Bishop | Madeline Kahn | Anthony LaPaglia | Catherine O'Hara | Joe Pesci | Molly Ringwald | Ally Sheedy | Burt Young | Julie Bovasso | Nicolas Coster | Bibi Besch | Dylan Walsh | Camille Saviola | Allan Rich | Sully Boyar | Monica Carr | Frankie Faison | Tom Mardirosian | Larry Block | Helen Hanft | Mario Todisco | Paul B. Mixon | William Duff-Griffin | Thomas John Caliguri | Samuel L. Jackson | Janet Pasquale | Harry L. Seddon | Carol Bawer | L.A. Freeman | David Kimball | Curtis Lambert | Hamilton Perkins | Larry Rapp | Adrian Van Daalen

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

Somehow I’d missed even the knowledge that this film existed. I suppose when it came out in 1990 it wasn’t really in my wheel house of interest, being more interested in sci-fi (not that anything’s changed really).

BETSY’S WEDDING is amusing enough, in and of itself. It’s not a landmark comedy by any stretch, but there area few one liners here and there that stand out and the cast all does well enough. The problem is the script, which goes from being a FATHER OF THE BRIDE-esque wedding chaos comedy to a fish-out-of-water Mafia comedy; that doesn’t really jive in the second half. That wacky plot rips the heart out of the first half and leaves it dangling until coming back to touch on it and wrap it up.

Alda as director and actor should’ve known better than to do that. BETSY’S WEDDING isn’t all wet, but it is a bit soggy in the middle.

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