...an affable endeavor that benefits significantly from the top-tier efforts of its various performers...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 17, 2024

Writer/director Ed Burns adds a droopy fourth chapter to his Irish-American working class films...

| Original Score: C- | Apr 22, 2009

Secure in its indie identity and wholly entertaining, The Groomsmen deserves hordes of filmgoers seeking quality alternatives to the bigger summer pictures.

| Mar 1, 2007

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 16, 2007

A standard big-weekend-where- friends-gather-and- everyone-has- a-secret movie.

Full Review | Sep 21, 2006

This is the movie I believe Burns has been trying to make since The Brothers McMullen, 11 years ago.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 25, 2006

Traffics in such familiar territory as sibling rivalries, generational estrangements and broken dreams. But it slowly, sometimes too slowly, connects with the viewer.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 25, 2006

It appears that as a filmmaker Burns is having as much difficulty maturing as his characters do.

| Original Score: C- | Aug 23, 2006

Its realistic portrayal of an almost extinct small-town dynamic between friends and family is not to be missed.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 19, 2006

The Groomsmen may be low-cal Cassavetes or Secrets and Lies for mooks, but Burns knows his turf. The marvel is that after seven films he's still finding fresh grass.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 10, 2006

Ed Burns repeats himself in his familiar territory about people who are young and stupid.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 7, 2006

The Groomsmen, while as corny as a Staten Island marriage proposal, rings true on many levels.

| Original Score: B | Aug 3, 2006

In a film of minor ambition, [the characters are] all worthy company.

| Original Score: B | Jul 26, 2006

What this is, is a typical film about nothing, which is what Burns likes to do best.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.7/5 | Jul 15, 2006

With the exception of the reliably wooden Burns, the ensemble is terrific.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 14, 2006

Burns, without pretense or sappiness, wears a heart the size of Manhattan on his sleeve, and handles the movie's rollercoaster of emotion with immense skill.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 14, 2006

Instead of whimsy there's nastiness, and instead of promising newcomers there's a cluster of formerly hot actors gone cold.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 14, 2006

The Groomsmen captures a single, specific moment, when responsibilities await but adulthood is still unwelcome. If their predicament strikes a chord, you may want to join Burns' boys for their final hurrah.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 14, 2006

The problem with Ed Burns' films is that the growth of the male characters...has been limited by a strict interpretation of what it means to be man.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 14, 2006

You have to suffer through a lot of down time in The Groomsmen to get to the good stuff.

| Jul 14, 2006