With such a talented cast and a premise ripe with potential, it truly is a shame that Bride Hard succumbs to Shaina Steinberg‘s lazy, exposition-overloaded script, Andrew MacRitchie‘s inexplicable editing, and Simon West‘s continually pedestrian directing (how he has fallen since Con Air in 1997 should be studied), resulting in an action-comedy that fails on both genre accounts.
The opening sequence clues us in as to how awkwardly edited and paced West’s vehicle will be, with Rebel Wilson‘s Sam quickly being established as some sort of overtly-capable spy, part of a small elite crew that have tracked their latest mission to Paris; Sam, as we learn, doesn’t play by the rules, but usually gets the job done. This latest job, which centres around a bioweapon of sorts, being in Paris means Sam has managed to convince her bestie, Betsy (Anna Camp), to move her bachelorette party to the same city, brining her gaggle of bridesmaids – uptight Virginia (Anna Chlumsky), pregnant Zoe (Gigi Zumbado) and the flirtatious Lydia (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) – along for the ride.
Naturally, Sam has to ditch the girls to kick some literal ass, and her absence doesn’t go unnoticed by Betsy and saboteur Virginia – Betsy’s future sister-in-law – who voices that Sam’s job as a cat show entrepreneur (yes, that’s what she claims she does) shouldn’t be more important than her and Betsy’s lifelong friendship. Betsy demotes Sam from maid of honour, there’s a minor round of presumed-emotionality between Sam and fellow agent Nadine (Sherry Cola), who insists she take a weekend off to attend the wedding to salvage the friendship, and Sam hoping to make things right at the ceremony, in spite of Betsy’s annoyance.
It travels all exactly where you expect it to, both within the fluffy leading-up-to-the-ceremony-moments, where Virginia does her best to exclude Sam at every turn, and during the second half of the feature where Betsy’s wedding is overrun by a crew of mercenaries (led by an autopilot Stephen Dorff), who are after the family fortune hidden on the grounds of the sprawling estate the wedding is taking place. And, naturally, it’s Sam to the rescue, which means everyone comes around to her when they discover that her absences have all been because she’s a capable badass of exceptionally violent proportions.
Despite the occasionally witty retort, an enjoyable turn from the committed Camp, and Randolph doing more than this film deserves, Bride Hard isn’t able to ever rise above its sloppy mediocrity. It’s a film that feels like it’s missing key ingredients of its story in order to flow more freely between set pieces, and it undoes any of its choreographed action by staging it in a way that doesn’t always make it clear what’s taking place. In a time when “made for streaming” is the new “straight to video”, and we’re bizarrely seeing some genuinely great films bypass theatres for their streaming fate, it’s quite the decision that Bride Hard was placed in theatres in the first place.
ONE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Bride Hard is screening in Australian theatres from July 31st, 2025.
