MADE OF HONOR: Wedding Deja Vu

MADE OF HONOR (romantic comedy)
Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin McKidd, Kathleen Quinlan and Sydney Pollack
Director: Paul Weiland
Time: 100 mins
Rating: * * (out of 4)
WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? If you have seen Julia Roberts' 'My Best Friend's Wedding', you are going to have a huge bout of deja vu with this one. However, that won't beat the irritation you will feel over the movie's illogical scripting.

WHAT'S IT ABOUT? Skirt-chaser Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan, pictured above with Dempsey) 'meet cute' during his senior year in college. Ten years later, they're best friends but their relationship is strictly platonic. It is hard for us to believe that Hannah may be the only woman in New York City with whom Tom has not slept with. Tom has sex with a different woman almost every night (and never the same one twice in a week - that's one of many rules he lives by), then confides in Hannah stories of his conquests.

To all his male buddies, he has the perfect life: variety in bed and bonding with Hannah in other areas of his life. However, this relationship is threatened when she announces that she is engaged to a Scot named Colin (Kevin McKidd) during a six-week business trip to Scotland. This comes at a rather bad time as Tom has just realised that he is in love with her. When Hannah asks Tom to be her 'maid of honour', our deja vu sets in...

HITS & MISSES: There are not many 'hits' here except perhaps the subplot with the late Sydney Pollack (as Tom's dad) marrying his six (or is it seventh?, he has lost count) young wife. Well, the locations in Scotland are breath-taking but then you are not paying good money to see Scottish scenery. The 'misses' are a-plenty. First, there's not much chemistry between Dempsey and Monaghan. All we have is the disbelief that despite being such great friends (who tell each other everything), he has difficulty telling her that he loves her! And since this one confession would resolve the whole denouement of the movie, the show drags on and on until we get to that cliched 'gate-crashing the altar' scene that forms the climax of almost all such romantic comedies. Why, they even 'borrow' the horse-riding scene from 'My Best Friend's Wedding'!

THE LOWDOWN: Go watch that Julia Roberts movie again if you are that starved for a rom-com.