In the vein of comedies built upon racial and cultural differences between families comes "Our Family Wedding", a film that is mostly offensive and off-putting. Much like its movie predecessors (e.g., "Guess Who" starring the late Bernie Mac), the broad humor here relies on unfunny stereotypes, like all black men are well-endowed and only purchase magnum-sized condoms, or all Mexicans are crazy Catholics who slaughter goats at their weddings. Now, being neither a black male or Mexican myself I cannot vouch for these statements one way or the other, but I'm pretty sure neither group would find them very funny either. America Ferrera stars as Lucia, the daughter of a hard-working Mexican by way of L.A. family, who falls in love with Marcus, the son of a womanizing single dad. When Lucia goes home to visit her family, they are all shocked to say the least when she announces she is marrying a black man. Cue up the clichéd (and in very bad taste) jokes, like Lucia's father mistaking Marcus for a waiter at the restaurant where they all meet, to Lucia's grandmother literally screaming and collapsing to the floor when she meets Marcus for the first time. You get the picture at how bad this movie is. In fact, it was so bad that I yanked it out of my Blu-Ray player with only 10 minutes left to go... yes, I could not stomach even 10 more minutes of this atrocity. I'm not saying that these types of movies are all bad - see the 1967 Oscar-winning "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" for an example of this type of movie done right - but it's a slippery slope when all your laughs rely on negative depictions of the ethnic groups you are representing. In its sorry attempt to be funny, this movie is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, and a talented actress like Ferrera deserves much better. Even if you love weddings, make sure you don't R.S.V.P. to this one.
1 out of 5 stars
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