A Hollywood career is a strange animal. Consider the ups and downs of Patrick Dempsey, the high-pitched actor currently riding high as “Dr. McDreamy” on TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”
Back in the late 1980s, Dempsey was being groomed as a light leading man, but the movies he made (“Can’t Buy Me Love,” “In the Mood”) weren’t very good and the great Dempsey craze never ignited. He spent years doing TV movies and seemed firmly in the category of the washed-up.
Then came “Grey’s Anatomy” and the kind of stardom that only “Access Hollywood” and People magazine can bestow. And here he is headlining movies again, the same kind of movies he was doing 20 years ago.
Granted, “Made of Honor” is marginally better than “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Although not by much.
In this variation on countless romantic comedies, Dempsey plays a lifelong womanizer who suddenly realizes that his best platonic pal (Michelle Monaghan) is actually the woman he wants to marry.
He realizes this only after she has fallen in love with a Scotsman (Kevin McKidd) and declared her intention to move to Scotland. Adding insult to injury, she asks Dempsey to be her maid of honor.
There follows much humiliation of our hero, most of it deserved. The standard-issue scenes of Dempsey joshing with his male buddies (playing basketball, of course) alternate with scenes of him helping his beloved pick out her wedding dress.
It all travels to Scotland, where Monaghan marries the Scots bloke and Dempsey enters a seminary. Just kidding — I wouldn’t Mcdream of giving away the ending. You’ll guess it easily enough after the first five minutes.
Director Paul Weiland has experience directing British TV, but he also made “Leonard Part 6,” one of the worst movies ever made. The script shows a certain mechanical expertise, to be sure — a phrase that could also describe the actors.
Michelle Monaghan’s performances in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “Gone Baby Gone” promised great things. This, however, is a window-dressing part.
So it’s up to Dempsey, in a kind of American Hugh Grant role. Maybe it’s the boorishness of the character as written, maybe it’s Dempsey’s TV-level wattage, but he just doesn’t leave much of an impression. Better keep those hospital scrubs handy, just in case.
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