Premise: A man is hired to “kidnap” a woman arranged to marry someone else, then things fall apart.
2018 sure gave me the wrong impression about where Dev Patel’s career was going. That year, he came out with Hotel Mumbai and The Wedding Guest. I saw those trailers and really thought Patel was turning into an action movie star. I mean, Hotel Mumbai is a hostage movie in which Patel tries to lead a group of people out of a hotel taken over by terrorists. The Wedding Guest is a hired gun movie. These sound like action movies. It turns out, neither are. Not really. Hotel Mumbai is based on true events. Patel doesn’t rescue the group. He’s mostly just a POV character. The movie is a pretty grim drama, actually. The Wedding Guest is also a lot more subdued. There’s the quick shootout early on, but it’s not a movie about Patel running from the law and dodging pursuers. It’s more of a romantic drama of sorts. When you throw in The Green Knight this year, Patel is really specializing in being in the smart versions of movies that should be dumb movies.
Anyway, I enjoyed The Wedding Guest. My misunderstanding about it even helped my enjoyment. The entire movie, I was tense waiting for the moment when Radhika Apte’s family catches them. All those patient shots in the movie or wide shots to take in the location felt like setting up the geography of a location for when Patel had to shoot his way out of it. The movie is a thriller, so I think some of that was an intentional misdirect. The movie had a much softer edge than most movies of its ilk. It always decides for the less intense option. Patel’s “shootout”: just two shots and only because he missed on the first shot. When he has to hide Apte’s boyfriend’s body, no close calls where he’s almost caught. When Apte leaves him: she does it while he’s sleeping, leaving him half the money, and no overwrought drama. This is a movie that I’m talking my way into liking even more.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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