Anxious, annoyed and touchy, the quintet of guys at the center of "The Groomsmen" push and snap at each other, and that's when they're being relatively polite.
The wedding three days hence of pregnant Sue (Brittany Murphy) to her live-in of the past two years, Paulie (Edward Burns), has everyone unnerved.
Despite a series of upbeat activities -- the revival of their old garage band, a softball game -- designed to celebrate the boys-are-still-boys nature of five mid-30-somethings frolicking together, scabs are ripping and old wounds opening.
Paulie is feeling pressured by a deadline imposed by the pregnancy, which indirectly threatens married older brother Jimbo (Donal Logue).
Cousin Mike (Jay Mohr) can't let go of a failed romance.
Dez (Matthew Lillard), who runs their old neighborhood bar, clearly had more fun running with the guys in the old days than he's having as a husband and father.
After vanishing for eight days, T.C. (John Leguizamo) is back in the fold long enough to out himself.
Like "Diner" and other films about the difficulty men have swapping the male camaraderie of their youth for the responsibilities and implied stability of marriage, "The Groomsmen" circles around male panic and female resentment and the frustration and confusion of both genders.
The new film is the seventh written and directed by Burns, who never deepens the crises, the characters and the resolutions quite enough but who demonstrates affection and sympathy if too often on a greeting-card level.
He's more eager to observe his characters once over lightly than to admit that human nature hurts and isn't so easily reconciled. At least he introduces issues and flirts with conscience, which today sets him apart.
- At Squirrel Hill Theater.
The Groomsmen
R for pervasive language and brief nudity;
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