Butler's Cinema Scene

Dev Patel

“THE WEDDING GUEST” My rating: B-

97 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Since breaking onto the world cinema scene as a struggling Indian Everyman in “Slumdog Millionaire,” Deval Patel has been methodically expanding his repertoire, from broad comedy (the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” franchise) to straight drama (“Lion”).

With Michael Winterbottom’s “The Wedding Guest” he takes a detour into genre, portraying a ruthlessly efficient man of mystery.

As the film begins Patel’s Jay flies from London to Pakistan.  That’s he’s not your usual tourist quickly becomes apparent: Jay has multiple passports, goes shopping for a small arsenal of handguns and rents two cars.

An anxious pall hangs over the film’s opening sequences.  Is Jay a terrorist bent on mayhem?  A paid assassin on assignment?

Things get a bit clearer when he begins keeping tabs on Samira (Radhika Apte), the daughter of the local gentry preparing for an elaborate arranged marriage. Jay tells people he encounters that he’s one of the wedding guests, but In the dead of night he slips into the family compound and kidnaps the girl, gunning down an armed guard to make his escape.

Samira is at first terrified. Then Jay explains that the kidnapping was arranged by her London-based lover, who hired Jay to spirit her away from her tradition-bound family.

Now the two are on the run, moving across Pakistan and into India toward a rendezvous with Samira’s squeeze. (On one level “Wedding Guest” is practically a travelogue.)

Initially the two fugitives could hardly be more different. He’s a cool professional, unemotional, quietly threatening, a  man of few words and many resources. She’s a spoiled rich girl.

But little by little Jay and Samira are drawn together by more than their legal dilemma. He begins to soften, to open up; she  becomes more aggressive.  At one point she invokes the names of Bonnie and Clyde.

Radhika Apte

Could love be far behind?

There’s a noirish element to “The Wedding Guest,” not just in its criminal aspects but in Samira’s growing confidence and willingness to play the femme fatale. Apte’s performance nicely makes the transition from deb to determined conniver.

Meanwhile Patel’s Jay is compelling without revealing too much.  Behind the tough exterior we get glimpses of a man finally ready to take a chance on his emotions.

Like many another noir hero (hello, Fred MacMurray), he may find himself in too deep to claw his way out.

| Robert W. Butler