Friends Graham (Kevin Bishop), Luke (Tim Draxl) and Tom (Kris Marshall) struggle to get it together for groom David (Xavier Samuel).
Giles Hardie, The Age, reports
The stars of A Few Best Men have experienced their own real-life disasters on the big day, writes Giles Hardie.
The high drama of a wedding can lead to farce but also makes the event a perfect subject for comedy.
Realising this, director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) thought it was about time Australia had a wedding farce to call its own. So he teamed up with Death at a Funeral writer Dean Craig to create A Few Best Men, the tale of David (Xavier Samuel), an English lad set to marry Australian girl Mia (Laura Brent).
The nuptials take place in the Blue Mountains at the house of Mia's father, Jim, the local federal MP and proud husband to Barbara (Olivia Newton-John), less-proud father of Daphne (Rebel Wilson) and somewhat perversely proud owner of Ramsey the prize-winning merino sheep.
When David and his three best men - Tom, Luke and Graham (Kris Marshall, Tim Draxl and Kevin Bishop) - arrive from Britain, the mandatory mayhem ensues. From naked drug dealers to intoxicated speeches, anything that can go wrong does.
Yet no matter the skill or imagination of a film's writer, real weddings are forever stranger than fiction, as these tales from the four eponymous best men demonstrate.
KEVIN BISHOP (Graham)
''I did go to one wedding where the guy who was the best man used to build cars with the groom and his whole speech was telling us how to take the carburettor out of a car and then replace the inlet manifold. It was really quite incredible. It went on for an hour-and-a-half. No one interrupted, because there was that morbid curiosity between everybody thinking at some point there was going to be a punchline. And in the end it was just, 'Wow, there's nothing coming.' He just talked to the point where the groom stood up and said, 'That's enough, Dave. I think, seriously mate, that's enough.'
''The first thing I did as soon as I got home was replace my carburettor. I had to do it straight away as it was fresh in my mind.''
TIM DRAXL (Luke)
''I've only ever been to one wedding. I was about 13 or 14 and it was at a mental asylum. The only other wedding I was supposed to go to was one of my best friend's weddings, in Greece. But I missed my flight. I'm notoriously late. I wasn't in the bridal party, thank god, and my friends were fine about it. They knew it was just me. I do try not to be late, I really do, but it always happens. My nickname on set was Look-who-decided-to-turn-up Draxl.
''That could explain why I've only been invited to two weddings.''
KRIS MARSHALL (Tom)
''I was at a very traditional wedding, with the top table and about eight circular tables facing it. During the father of the bride's speech, this old guy sat at one of the tables with his back to the father, he literally expires.
''The speech carries on, because people aren't really noticing; they're trying to get into the spirit of the thing. Then people started to notice. He was slumped over. He'd gone stone-slab grey. Yet the father of the bride is stabbing on. Finally, he gets interrupted when no one could take it any longer. Then they try to lift this guy out of the chair but he's too heavy. So these four guys grab a leg of his chair each and run out with this expired old man in a chair.
''The father of the bride was shaken but, in true stoic style, carried on with the speech. It was painful. Everyone was just thinking, 'What happened to that guy? Is he dead?' Amazingly, he didn't die. I don't know what the paramedics gave him but I saw him dancing the funky chicken about 10 o'clock that evening looking fine.''
XAVIER SAMUEL (David)
''My father got married a couple of years ago in Melbourne and I was in the bridal party. At the start of the ceremony, I was supposed to be standing up there with my brother and a couple of others. Instead, they were all there biting their fingernails and asking, 'Where is he?' I was in the city, running around looking for a pair of black shoes. I'd flown down from Sydney and forgot to pack any. I didn't know how hard it was to get a simple pair of black shoes. Every store you go into, they're like fancy in different ways. I almost had to wear a pair of Dunlop Volleys to my dad's wedding. I was like, 'This is not going to work!'''
A FEW BEST MEN
GENRE Comedy.
BUZZ Australian does wedding comedy.
STARS Xavier Samuel, Kevin Bishop, Tim Draxl, Kris Marshall, Laura Brent, Rebel Wilson, Olivia Newton-John.
DIRECTOR Stephan Elliott.
RATED MA15+.
RELEASE Now screening.
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