What was Patrick Dempsey thinking?
“Made of Honor,” a supposed romantic comedy vehicle for the “Grey’s Anatomy” heartthrob, casts Dempsey as an egocentric sexaholic with a sudden yen for his longtime best friend (Michelle Monaghan).
This charmless, laugh-starved effort is more like a “Dis-Enchanted.”
A prologue establishes Dempsey’s character in college. Tom is an incorrigible ladies’ man, who on a Halloween night mistakes Hannah (Monaghan), asleep in a dorm room, for his conquest. She isn’t, and their meet-cute-and-spar is standard for this genre.
A decade later, the two havebecome best buds. Tom’s an unappealing control freak with a long list of mating do’s and don’ts – no woman can spend more than one night in his apartment, for example. Why Hannah listens patiently to his bed-hopping tales is a tantalizing question – but in a movie that makes very little sense, why bother wondering?
When Hannah goes off for a Scottish vacation, a suddenly lonely Tom realizes she’s The One. But – surprise, surprise – Hannah returns engaged, wildly in love with a dreamy Scot.
As played by Kevin McKidd (HBO’s “Rome”), Hannah’s fiance is anything but a joke. He can hunt, fish and charm – and it doesn’t hurt that he’s a castle-owning duke.
Rushing into a wedding, Hannah invites Tom to be her maid of honor. He takes this to mean that without declaring his true feelings, he can sabotage the wedding and still win her.
While this might sound like a distaff (and dislikable) version of “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Made of Honor” painfully suffers transparent complications that serve to highlight Tom’s utter unworthiness as a mate.
Dempsey’s comic timing couldn’t be better, and he looks great in and out of bed. But he’s undone by a character that remains fairly despicable.
Fine actors like Sidney Pollack (Tom’s dad) and Kathleen Quinlan (Hannah’s dizzy mom) are pretty much lost – but the Scottish scenery is terrific.
(“Made of Honor” contains frequent sexual situations.)
Rated PG-13. At AMC Loews Boston Common, Regal Fenway Stadium and suburban theaters.
