Movie review: Made of Honor

Director: Paul Weiland Starring: Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin McKidd It's like the 1980s never ended as Patrick Dempsey, sporting a Bill Clinton mask and playing the lothario Tom, mistakenly gets ­involved with a university student, Hannah (Monaghan), in the pre-credit ­sequence of Made of Honor. She's outraged. Ten years later, they're best platonic friends. Tom's life is thrown into turmoil when ­Hannah announces she's marrying a Scotsman (McKidd). Predictably, the player Tom finally realises the value of monogamy. We know he's going to win her back, it's a romantic comedy after all, but this one is insufferably rampant with clichés. The wedding is in Scotland and so out comes the poetry of Robert Burns, kilts and The Highland Games. This latest wedding yarn seems especially divorced of charm as it comes so soon after the similarly themed The Heartbreak Kid (which also starred Monaghan) and 27 Dresses. The something new in Made of Honor is that it's the man doing the yearning. Since his '80s heyday, ­Dempsey took a seemingly terminal career nosedive until his recent TV success starring as Dr. Derek Shepherd in Grey's Anatomy made him leading-man material again. Yet, as far as movies go, Dempsey retains his uncanny knack of choosing scripts for bridesmaids. kaftab@thenational.ae