The one who should have gotten away

Patrick Dempsey can't quite redeem dislikable character

Something didn't feel quite right throughout "Made of Honor," a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy starring Patrick Dempsey, but it wasn't until the climax when it hit me.

After Dempsey's Tom finally gets his girl - please don't complain that I'm giving anything away - my initial reaction was to feel sorry for her. It was then that I realized I had been rooting against him all along.

That's less Dempsey's problem than the screenplay's. The star is likable enough, but his character is an arrogant jerk - and not the kind you want to see redeemed.

A callous womanizer with ground rules designed to ward off any sort of lasting relationship ("no back-to-backs"), Tom nonetheless has Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) as his best - albeit strictly platonic - friend.

They met in college when Tom accidentally crawled into her bed (he was aiming for her roommate's) and ever since have continued an odd, icky relationship: They regularly meet over pastries, when he recounts his latest conquests and she disapprovingly shakes her head.

The movie continues this way until the screenwriters finish watching "My Best Friend's Wedding" and throw in a twist: On a trip to Scotland Hannah falls for and becomes engaged to a strapping whiskey heir named Colin (Kevin McKidd).

She naturally asks Tom to be her maid of honor, he naturally realizes he's loved her all along and so all sorts of wedding-related high jinks ensue.

Most of this is blandly staged by director Paul Weiland, whose experience on the "Mr. Bean" television series may explain some of the ill-advised slapstick. Dempsey can beam and toss his hair as well as any romantic-comedy dreamboat, but a physical comedian he is not.

Monaghan, meanwhile, is such a natural, charming presence you wish the movie was being told from her point of view. It's easy to see why Tom would want to hang out with Hannah. What she's getting out of the relationship is never quite clear.

It isn't just a matter of Colin being a more interesting, thoughtful match for Hannah (which he is, even after the filmmakers try to throw in a few last-minute faults to justify their happy ending).

It's that Tom is such a dim prospect. This guy hasn't spent two days in a row with the same woman, and now he's going to be happily tied to Hannah for the rest of his life?

I realize you're not supposed to put romantic comedies to this sort of test. They're meant to be taken as fairly tales and allowed to blithely skip off into the happily ever after, no tough questions asked.

But the filmmakers have to grease the wheels a little bit to get us there. If they can't even manage to provide a romantic hero we want to see win that inevitable tug-of-war at the altar, why should we bother to grant their box-office wish?

Read more by movie editor Josh Larsen at LarsenOnFilm.com.