Looking at my ever-expanding watchlist it’s chock full of powerful dramas, epics sagas and inspiring biopics that have been recommended by my cinema-going peers, or new releases that have landed on Netflix and the like, but sometimes I just really fancy something silly, stupid and slightly crass and going by my memories of the trailer Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates perfectly fits the bill. The fact that Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Zac Efron and Adam Devine make up the central quartet only sweetens the deal further.

Similar to the ‘fact is stranger than fiction’ real-life escapades that spawned the surprisingly brilliant Tag, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is loosely based on, or should I say, inspired by the genuine story of brothers Mike and Dave Stangle who went viral after posting an advert on Craigslist for dates to their cousins wedding in New York. Although they wound up taking friends, their actions paved the way for television appearances and a book deal, eventually selling the movie rights for a rather impressive seven-figure sum.

Young, free and single brothers Mike and Dave Stangle are the life and soul of the party, at least, that’s what they think. As it turns out, their alcohol fueled hijinks usually turn the fun and frolics of family events into carnage and disaster so with their baby sister’s destination wedding on the near horizon the boys father gives them an ultimatum in a bid to keep them in line – they must each bring a respectable date.

As outraged and offended as they may be, they do love their sister dearly and so place a video advert on Craigslist which quickly goes viral even leading to a television appearance and more exposure. After meeting, and interviewing, a host of weird and wonderful potential dates, they bump into Tatiana and Alice outside of a bar and instantly click. But first impressions aren’t always right and as we know, and the boys will quickly find out, Tatiana and Alice are wild and trashy hot messes – the female counterparts to Mike and Dave’s crazy.

It doesn’t take too long for the facades to crumble and chaos breaks out in the bright sunshine of Hawaii as Mike and Dave attempt to control the uncontrollable duo or risk turning their sister’s paradise wedding into a wedding from hell.

As with most ensemble comedies such as these, it is less the writing and more the casting that make it work and MADNWD is no different. The leading quartet of Plaza, Kendrick, Devine and Efron have each made their comedic marks individually but they come together well on the screen, bouncing of off each other like some crazy foul-mouthed pinball machine..

Adam Devine sticks to the slightly less attractive, lovable goofball that he has come to be known for but, hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. That seems to be the same for Zac Efron too who is slowly distancing himself from his Disney Channel roots one shirtless shot at a time. Whilst they both ooze charm and self-deprecating humour, their respective performances as the titular Mike and Dave do pale in comparison to that of their wedding date counterparts.

Plaza’s deadpan and goth-like delivery of April Ludgate made her a Parks and Rec fan favourite but here she livens it up slightly as the fired waitress / fake school teacher Tatiana – a compulsive liar and borderline alcoholic who just wants to bring her best friend out of her ‘just been dumped at the altar’ funk and will do anything to achieve her goal – depicted in a hilariously unwholesome, and rather shocking, sauna scene. Said best friend, Alice – played by a personal favourite of mine, Anna Kendrick – pretends to be a hedge fund manager but is slightly out of her depth when it comes to faking a complete persona. Here, Kendrick takes the adorkable quirkiness that she is typically known for, gives it an R rating and relishes doing so.

Let’s not try and get all ‘film critique-y’ here, this film is a mess. A shouldn’t-be-funny-but-it-is, packed full of bad jokes, made-for-shock raunchy mess and it is glorious. Its frequent references and comparisons to the far superior Wedding Crashers just goes to show that Jake Szymanski’s Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try to be anything different. If you aren’t already fans of the raunchy, ‘gross-out‘ comedies such as American Pie or Superbad then MADNWD is not really the film for you and probably do very little to change your mind on the genre, but if you are a sucker for tasteless jokes and toilet humour then settle in for a hugely entertaining ride.