The eight worst Shotgun Wedding character choices ranked from silly to suicidal
Jennifer Lopez (as Darcy) and Josh Duhamel (as Tom) star in Shotgun Wedding
Warning! This article contains spoilers for Shotgun Wedding
Action-comedies are notorious for characters making thoughtless and downright stupid decisions. But if everyone made the logical choice when faced with a life-and-death situation, the story would be over in half the time – with less than half the laughs. Shotgun Wedding is no exception to this unspoken rule.
Directed by Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) and starring superstar J-Lo and Safe Haven’s Josh Duhamel, the adrenalin-fuelled rom-com streaming on Prime Video from January 27 takes us on an adventure as almost-weds Tom (Duhamel) and Darcy (Lopez) have their extravagant destination wedding hijacked by ransom-seeking pirates. While the couple venture to save their family and guests, who have all been taken hostage, they give new meaning to “Til death do us part”.
We’ve gathered the most reckless, clumsy and idiotic choices in Shotgun Wedding, ranking them from silly to just-plain suicidal.
Steve Coulter and Jennifer Coolidge
1. A wedding day is riddled with century-old superstitions. One of the most well-known is to avoid seeing your fiancé right before the ceremony. Whilst Darcy and Tom are pulled away from each other’s arms the night before the nuptials by Tom’s mother, Carol (Golden Globe-winner Jennifer Coolidge), she isn’t there to separate the lovers in the morning. But only minutes before hearing the first notes of Here Comes The Bride, the pair argue and just about break up. Could this clandestine meeting be a catalyst for the tragedy that is to follow?
Lenny Kravitz as Sean
2. At the Fowler-Rivera wedding, where the not-so-happy couple are wanted for ransom, the last thing you want is to be mistaken for the lady of the day. But guest Amanda (María del mar Fernández) missed the memo that you never wear white to a wedding and is assumed to be the bride by the gun-wielding pirates. She says in her defence: “I didn’t know that was a rule!”, while Mother of the Groom Carol calls her bluff: “Yes you did, you’re a gaslighter”. Amanda got owned!
Sean’s (Lenny Kravitz) white suit jacket also doesn’t go unnoticed – a smart hint at the ex’s true show-stealing intentions from Hustlers (2019) costume designer Mitchell Travers.
Callie Hernandez and Desmin Borges as the maid of honour and best man
3. This is the perfect example of how poor execution can sabotage a brilliant idea. When the wedding guests are herded into the pool, Carol grabs the attention of the criminals by listing off personal details, like how she dreams of going to Ireland. “I’m humanising myself,” she announces – loud enough for the bad guys to hear, too. “If you humanise yourself to them, they let you live!” Cut to the pirate leader (Bullet Train’s Pancho Cardena) shaking his head in disbelief. Half the guests share trivial facts, desperate to draw empathy from the cold-hearted criminals. Obviously, the strategy doesn’t work… or else there’d be no movie!
Darcy and Tom are getting desperate
4. Darcy and Tom don’t pay much heed to the old “work smarter, not harder” philosophy. When setting up their first ambush, the scared pair hide in the shower, armed with a net, hairspray and a match. Their plan is simple: wrap the bad guy in the net and light him up with the homemade flamethrower. You can imagine how disastrously flawed their plan is. As Darcy keeps telling Tom, it has “too many steps!”
5. When booking an island resort, “prone to pirate sieges” isn’t usually a red flag you’d look out for in the reviews. Still, if you did happen to learn about an attack the previous summer at the very same resort, a cautious person would opt for a safer option, right? Not Tom. He decides they’ll take their chances. And, really, what are the odds of it happening two years in a row?
Things just keep getting worse for Darcy and Tom on their big day
6. Bound together by zip ties, Darcy and Tom conveniently find themselves in a kitchen. Inconveniently though, there seems to be a shortage of knives – at least one sharp enough to free them from their plastic handcuffs. Finally, a heavy-duty table saw seems like their answer. But instead of carefully approaching the spinning blades and slicing gently, Darcy abandons a countdown and decides to treat it “like ripping off a band-aid”. Only, going in fast and blind proves senseless when Tom sustains a nasty, blood-spurting cut to his hand – one that causes a hemophobic Darcy to pass out on the tiled floor.
J-Lo and Callie Hernandez
7. Rule number one about wielding a loaded gun, don’t aim it at people! Emotional Darcy crashes the hostages’ dismal pool party and as she waves around a loaded shotgun – hence the title of the film – she accidentally shoots her sister, Jamie (Callie Hernandez). Thankfully, it’s only a flesh wound, nothing fatal. But it’ll sure leave a scar.
8. Who said it was a good idea to invite your ex to your wedding? No one. Ever. In this case, it proves not only problematic, but deadly. Robert Rivera’s (Cheech Marin) selfish intentions in pushing his daughter to invite ex-lover Sean (Kravitz) to the family celebration for a business deal unwittingly lets in the enemy. This is a reminder to all fiancées: don’t let your father get involved in the invitation list.
D’Arcy Carden and Cheech Marin
Despite eyerolls and scoffs from sensible viewers, Shotgun Wedding is a barrel of laughs on the surface. Heartfelt moments, such as Jennifer Coolidge leading the family choir in Edwin McCain’s ballad I’ll Be (a throwback to Coolidge’s film A Cinderella Story), help overlook the silly blunders made by the lovestruck couple and tactless guests. If they gain the upper hand in the end, what’s a few setbacks?
