The Honeymoon – movie review
The cringeworthy and unfunny comedy The Honeymoon is an Italian/British co-production and it’s received some of the worst reviews of the year.
Adam (Pico Alexander) has been best friends with Bav (Asim Chaudhry) since they were children and they called themselves “the inseparables.” But as a teenager Adam moved to America with his family for many years before returning home to London. And although Adam and Bav kept in touch, Bav has somehow felt resentful.
When the film opens, Adam is marrying his girlfriend Sarah (Maria Bakalova). But the wedding doesn’t go without a hitch as best man Bav, loses the ring and then makes a cringe-worthy speech at the reception. And it goes downhill from there. Due to a misunderstanding, Adam is made to feel guilty and, against his better judgement, somehow invites the obnoxious and socially awkward Bav along on his honeymoon to Venice. Sarah is not impressed and feels uncomfortable around him.
What was supposed to be a romantic getaway turns into a disaster when Bav leads Adam and Sarah into a dangerous situation after he befriends the charming, handsome and rich Giorgio (Lucas Bravo.
Giorgio invites the three friends to spend the weekend at his luxurious palazzo. But it turns out Giorgio is a drug dealer, and is following in his gangster father’s footsteps. Giorgio holds Sarah hostage while he forces Adam and Bav to smuggle a shipment of cocaine into Slovenia. With Bav along nothing goes smoothly as he makes one bad decision after another. Adam experiences a frantic couple of days as the pair lurch from one dangerous and catastrophic situation to another. Meanwhile Sarah is charmed by Giorgio who seems to share her passion for art.
This painfully unfunny comedy comes from writer/director Dean Craig, who previously wrote films such as Death at a Funeral and A Few Best Men. But his comedic sensibility seems to have deserted him with this tone deaf mix of rom-com, buddy comedy and action comedy. The script is fairly generic and taps into the tropes of the odd couple buddy comedy and the action comedy, but much of the humour is cringeworthy and falls flat. There is also plenty of humour based on bodily functions that fails to elicit much in the way of laughs, and Craig’s pacing is uneven.
Even worse though is the complete lack of chemistry between the three leads. Chaudhry (What’s Love Got To Do With It?) and Alexander (Red Dead Redemption II) create a wonderful contrast with their characters who have vastly different personalities, but it’s hard to see how the boorish Bav and the essentially decent but meek Adam have remained longtime friends though. Chaudhry plays a grating, irritating and crude character that seems to suit his on-screen persona, and improvises a lot of his dialogue. While he was fine in a brief couple of scenes in What’s Love Got To Do With It? here he’s on screen much of the running time and his presence becomes more annoying as the film continues. His performance as the bumbling Bav is over-the-top. Alexander does what he can with a character who spends much of his time reacting to situations. Bravo (Emily in Paris) brings plenty of charm to his role and Bakalova (Bodies Bodies Bodies) does well as the frustrated Sarah.
On a positive note, The Honeymoon was shot on location in picturesque Venice, and it’s obvious Craig has a love for the country – he shot his earlier film Love Wedding Repeat there as well. The film looks great thanks to the cinematography of Mike Stern Sterzynski (Bank of Dave).
The Honeymoon is currently in limited release
Greg King
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Greg King has had a life long love of films. He has been reviewing popular films for over 15 years. Since 1994, he has been the film reviewer for BEAT magazine. His reviews have also appeared in the Herald Sun newspaper, S-Press, Stage Whispers, and a number of other magazines, newspapers and web sites. Greg contributes to The Blurb on film