They should really let us know when there is going to be a blooper reel during the end credits of a film.  It’s a great indicator that the film is terrible but ‘please leave laughing’.  Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) is no exception and, despite some funny moments, just isn’t any good.  It’s one of those comedies in which everyone is either insane or a doormat, gay / bisexual equals sex pest, poor equals degenerate, and you find it hard to care about the wedding as it blatantly costs more than you’ll make in a decade.

But the blooper reel is interesting because it contains a joke (I say joke but I mean ‘string of words’) that is definitely funnier than the preceding 100 mins and the moment that an admonishing ‘alright’ is heard from off camera you are reminded how much play is made of being ‘outrageous’ without actually being outrageous.  Like Suicide Squad (2016) before it, the film falls down in not having the courage to actually be about bad people or the smarts to teach them a lesson without being patronising.  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) works because it’s about the ‘game’, The Way of the Gun (2000) works because it’s about people reluctantly drawing a line against their better judgement.

Blah blah, what I’m not saying succinctly is that bad people can do good things but they need to actually be bad for the journey to be satisfying.  The mistake here is thinking that identifying with a character and liking them have to go hand in hand.  Or just thinking that anyone would give a monkeys.  The film should have been about the sister.