newcritics

License to Wed, the delightful new comedy from Ingmar Bergman (I know, he keeps saying he’s going to retire, but it’s like my old man used to say, some of these guys you gotta beat into the grave with a stick), starring Robin Williams and some other people, should be seen by anyone considering marriage, or remarriage, or even re-remarriage, or come to think of it by anyone not considering marriage at all. Just go see it, give yourself a treat.

Robin plays Reverend Hank, who is secretly the comedian who becomes President in that other recent Robin Williams movie that seven people actually saw. It seems that his character in that movie got impeached and thrown out of office because everyone in the country was just too plain bored with him, and so he changed his name to Reverend Hank and bought some minister uniforms and bamboozled himself into a minister’s job at some church in some vague suburb somewhere. He’s hiding out pretty quietly, only occasionally committing a random murder just for kicks, when a young couple show up at the rectory one day saying they want to get married. Robin is really hungover, plus he’s got a dead body in the basement he hasn’t disposed of yet, but he agrees to give them some reverendly advice; he tells them not to do it, that they’ll soon get tired of having sex with each other and what’s the point of having kids and raising a family anyway. Best just to take up some harmless hobby like stamp collecting or watching Battlestar Gallactica.

He’s shutting the door in their faces when the girl (Lindsay Lohan) shoves her nubile body between it and the jamb and insists on satisfaction. Wearily, Reverend Hank agrees. The dude (the nice guy from The Office, what’s his name, Ted Kluszewski), he’s already having his doubts about the whole enterprise but he knows that once a chick gets her mind set on marrying you there’s not a whole hell of a lot you can do about it, and he’s not doing too much with his life anyway, so he goes along for the ride. Besides, as he says to his stoner buddy (Jack Black), “Hey, this is my first sort-of-starring role in a movie, even if I do keep getting upstaged by this tiresome old ham, so I’m just gonna keep my trap shut, look good, and collect my paycheck.” “Word up,” says Jack, passing Ted the doobie.

Things got a little dull and plotty here; there was something about Lindsay’s gal-pal (Paris Hilton) having had sex once with the dude, and another thing about Lindsay having once had sex with the dude’s other stoner buddy (Johnny Knoxville), and another subplot about dude’s other other stoner buddies (Luke and Owen Wilson) getting recruited by the CIA to come back and do “one last job”, and then some really creepy business about Reverend Robin and a digital video camera. I went out for a cigar break, and there were a few dozen other guys out there smoking and chatting; they’d all been dragged to the movie by their girlfriends and wives. Some of the guys weren’t smokers, so they just stood around, kind of wishing they were smokers. There was even one gay dude who had been dragged there by his boyfriend. A couple of guys were passing around joints, and I’ll admit it, I took a toke or two. It helped. After a while I rubbed the cigar out gently on the brick of the movie theatre’s wall, wrapped the stogie in a Kleenex and put it in my shirt pocket to save for later. I went back inside and I slipped back into my seat as unobtrusively as I could because I didn’t want to wake anyone up. Up on the screen Robin was doing something funny, and all of a sudden I realized that the chick wasn’t Lindsay Lohan after all, it was that other one, Hilary Duff, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.

There was a really good scene at the end where the world-weary cop played by Al Pacino arrests Robin Williams. “I useta be somebody,” says Robin. “Useta be don’t count for shit, my friend,” says Al, shoving him up against the wall. “You, me, Bobby DeNiro, Steve Martin, Dusty Hoffman, we all used to be somebody. But we got rich, and our shit got soft, and our edge got as dull as a Republican housewife’s brain. Sure, everybody makes a crapola movie now and then, that’s the nature of the business. But this time you went too far, Reverend. This time you’re goin’ down.” He cuffs him and shoves him out the door. “I’m still good at stand-up!” says Robin. “Nobody can touch me at stand-up!” “Tell it to the judge,” says Al. “Gene Hackman’s doin’ the cameo, maybe he’ll take pity on your tired ass. Now walk.”

Fade to black. You don’t actually see Robin’s character get executed, so maybe there’ll be a sequel. I got up to go. The aged couple next to me seemed to be still asleep, so I nudged the man. He didn’t move, and I realized he was dead. I checked his presumable wife, and she too had passed away, the both of them dead of boredom. I got the hell out of there.

(Some of the names have been changed to protect the less guilty. This has been a Newcritics exclusive, brought to you by Quinn/Martin Productions, but turn here if you just can’t get enough.)