Review by Pamela Zoslov
Loosely adapted from the 2006 Swiss
film Mon frère se marie,
the movie has a familiar La Cage aux Folles premise:
a family enacts a social charade to deceive prospective in-laws. In
the original Swiss movie, a divorced couple and their alienated
children fake familial happiness to deceive the mother of their
Vietnamese foster son. The Hollywood version has DeNiro and Keaton as
Don and Ellie, a long-divorced couple, pretend they're still married
for the sake of the devoutly Catholic birth mother (Patricia Rae) of
their Colombian-born adopted son Alejandro (played, via politically
incorrect Central Casting, by British actor Ben Barnes). Apart from the chauvinism of portraying a Colombian woman as
a rosary-fondling rustic named Madonna, the film sins
against comedy by failing to develop its farcical theme. The
direction is slack and listless: a climactic scene under the
wedding reception tent, in which the characters hurl around vicious accusations and
scandalous revelations, is so limp it feels like rehearsal outtakes.
