BEFORE: Pierce Brosnan carries over from "The Thursday Murder Club", but we'll see Celia Imrie again (great to see her name above the title, BTW) in February if the plan holds. I can't really see after just five days where this year is headed, but it's definitely in fine shape, I don't have many issues with this line-up so far. Give it time, though, I'm sure I'll find something to complain about.
THE PLOT: A straight-laced bank manager is about to marry the love of his life, but when his bank is held up during his wedding week, he starts to believe his future in-laws, who just arrived in town, are the infamous Ghost Bandits.
AFTER: This is one of those films that tries to be a bunch of different things at the same time - it's a comedy film, it's an action/heist film, there's a bit of romance/relationship stuff because there's a wedding with two sets of parents. The two families are VERY different, of course, because therein lies the comedy. The lead character is caught in the middle because his own parents are so normal and his fiancee's parents are so mysterious that he's never even met them, supposedly they're living with some tribe in the Amazon, but they resurface for their daughter's wedding, of course.
But is their story just a bit unbelievable? All that Owen really knows about them is that they have a storage unit in town, and Owen, maker of craft projects and video collages, innocently calls the storage place to see if he can get some photos of his future in-laws - but this inquiry alerts some very bad people who know the missing McDermotts, and they suddenly arrive in town, a few days ahead of schedule. They were going to fly in the night before the wedding and leave right after, which is another bit of suspicious behavior. Owen also happens to be a bank manager, and his wife's parents have a lot of questions for him about the bank's security systems. Sure, maybe they're just making idle conversation, but when two masked people with their builds rob his bank the next day, Owen starts putting two and two together.
This puts him in a difficult spot, if he tells his wife he thinks her parents are bank robbers, that could be the end of the relationship, even if he's right. If he turns them in to the FBI agent, he could be held complicit in the robbery, because he accidentally told them everything they needed to know. Screenwriting is all about choices, of course, and this could have gone down two ways, there's one movie if they ARE the Ghost Bandits, and there's another movie if they are not. Umm, which one has the most comedy potential? Exactly. It turns out the McDermotts have been on the run because they owe money their crime boss, who never got her cut from their last job. Which explains why they've been in hiding all this time, it was to protect their daughter. Yeah, I know, the logic isn't really there to support this decision, like we care about our daughter so much we're going to stay out of her life? Another possible solution would be to stop robbing banks, but I suppose that's out of the question.
The million dollars that they owe the mobster has risen to five million over time, that's how interest works with these unsavory types - also, you know, inflation because have you seen how expensive everything is these days? You almost do need to become a bank robber to supplement your income these days - I know I'm working two part-time jobs and it feels like I'm always running out of money. Once the mobster learns the Ghost Bandits have a daughter, naturally she kidnaps Parker to insure she gets the money she's owed within the next week. Oh, if only the Bandits knew somebody who has enviously studied the security systems of all of the competing banks in town. Wait a sec...
Owen finds himself participating in a larger heist, but only to save his fiancee. Again, there's a narrative choice to be made here, because one option would be to have the Ghost Bandits turn themselves in to the FBI and flip on their crime boss. But option B, to proceed with yet another heist that goes incredibly, impossibly sideways has much more comedy potential, so really, that's not much of a choice at all.
I may give this film an extra point for the syntax of the title, it's a great play on the word "in-laws" considering that the potential in-laws are also potential out-laws. I'm reminded of a gag in an animated feature called "The Tune" which had a nonsense song about a town called "Flooby Nooby" with a bunch of crazy characters. One was a transvestite guy who lived on the edge of town and the song lyric was "Burt's in the outskirts, in skirts."
Directed by Tyler Spindel (director of "The Wrong Missy")
Also starring Adam Devine (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic"), Ellen Barkin (last seen in "The Man from Toronto"), Nina Dobrev (last seen in "Then Came You"), Michael Rooker (last heard in "Superman" (2025)), Poorna Jagannathan (last seen in "Awake"), Richard Kind (last seen in "18 1/2"), Julie Hagerty (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Blake Anderson (last seen in "Dope"), Lauren Lapkus (last seen in "The Wrong Missy"), Lil Rel Howery (last seen in "I Love My Dad"), Dean Winters (last seen in "Framing John DeLorean"), Laci Mosley, Dan Jablons, Sunny Sandler (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Jackie Sandler (ditto), Peggy Walton-Walker (last seen in "Queen Bees"), Mo Gallini, Betsy Sodaro (last heard in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish"), Cale Schultz, Paul Eliopoulos, Setaleki Manu, Reyn Doi (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 4"), Josh Bolla, John Wesley Randall, Gigi Bermingham (last seen in "Alex & Emma"), John Winscher, Montrel Miller, Zele Avradopoulos.
RATING: 6 out of 10 action figures (aww, why didn't I have Chewbacca at MY wedding?)
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