HomeFilm'Bridesman' review

‘Bridesman’ review

Terry (Jimmy Fowlie) accepts his best friend Judith’s (Sydnee Washington) invitation to be the man-of-honour at her wedding. With a plan to seduce Judith’s husband-to-be in order to stop the wedding, Terry doesn’t realise he’s going to have to contend with Judith’s other best friend Muriel (Shannon DeVido) and her army of wedding planners who are determined to make the wedding happen. As Terry and Muriel lock horns, which one of them will emerge victorious?

Originally released as a series, ‘Bridesman’ has been edited together into an hour-long film for this release via TLA Releasing. Centred around the self-serving and self-obsessed Terry, John Onieal’s film wastes no time in establishing that the main character isn’t very likeable. Within minutes he’s having sex with his Uber driver Oscar (Calvin Seabrooks) before thinking about moving on to his supposed best friend’s fiancé.

Bridesman
Credit TLA Releasing

‘Bridesman’ has two main issues. Firstly, all of the characters are hugely unlikeable. There’s not a single one that you want to root for or support, and that becomes a problem very quickly. Secondly, it’s not very funny. It managed to get a few stifled laughs out of me over the course of its run-time but I felt the writers and the actors thought it was a lot funnier while making it than it actually turned out to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of silly escapism as much as the next person but there’s barely anything here to work with. The plot goes exactly the way you think it’s going to, the characters don’t really seem to learn from their behaviour, and the climax is… well anti-climactic.

Bridesman
Credit TLA Releasing

Jimmy Fowlie plays the role of Terry with gusto, I’ll give him that, but the performance unfortunately veers on the side of annoying. It’s hard to believe that his character Terry would be friends with Judith, or that Judith would entrust such an important role in her wedding to someone who clearly has zero morals. Calvin Seabrooks, who was recently seen in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is the best of the cast but his character is given very little to do other than serve the whims of Terry.

‘Bridesman’ is mercifully short but it doesn’t really have anything to say for itself. The plot is over-the-top and unbelievable, and the vapid central characters don’t leave much for you to engage with. Save a few sparse laughs, ‘Bridesman’ is pretty forgettable and you’ll likely struggle to remember much about it once the end titles arrive. What could have been a fun bit of fluff is sadly just a total miss.

Bridesman

Cast: Jimmy Fowlie, Sydnee Washington, David Mudge, Calvin Seabrooks, Shannon DeVido Director: John Onieal Writer: John Onieal & Frank Spiro Certificate: 15 Duration: 59 mins Released by: TLA Releasing Release date: 26th June 2023

author avatar
Pip Ellwood-Hughes Editor / Owner
Pip is the owner and Editor of Entertainment Focus, and the Managing Director of Piñata Media.

Must Read

Advertisement
Terry (Jimmy Fowlie) accepts his best friend Judith’s (Sydnee Washington) invitation to be the man-of-honour at her wedding. With a plan to seduce Judith’s husband-to-be in order to stop the wedding, Terry doesn’t realise he’s going to have to contend with Judith’s other best...'Bridesman' review