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SING NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE
Written, Produced & Directed by: Bruce Leddy.
Edited by: Bill DeRonde.
Director of Photography: Clyde Smith.
Music: Jeff Cardoni.
Released by: Strand Releasing.
Country of Origin: USA. 94 min. Not Rated.
With: David Alan Basche, Chris Bowers, Samrat Chakrabarti, Alexander Chaplin, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mark Feuerstein, David Harbour, Elizabeth Reaser, Reg Rogers, Molly Shannon, Liz Stauber and Camilla Thorsson.

Once more into the breach – again a wedding triggers a reunion of a college band of brothers, this time for a requested performance of their old a cappella group at the nuptials of Greg (Mark Feuerstein). But it’s taken 15 years for these buddies, at a rehearsal weekend in the Hamptons, to only now be facing divorce, job disappointment, the biological clock, sexual ambivalence, and aging.

Amidst the sex jokes, each guy is pretty much a type. David (David Harbour), the nice married IT guy, is in a job rut. Richard (Reg Rogers), a lawyer fresh from his divorce, continually spouts stale Woody Allen-isms about Manhattan living. Steven (David Alan Basche) is the requisite stereotype of a LA reality-show producer convinced he’s making documentaries; Spooner (Chris Bowers), a rich hunk version of Doonesbury’s Zonkers; Will (Samrat Chakrabarti), the token non-white; and Ted (Alexander Chaplin), the uptight business depressive, whose emotions provide the little tension.

From the foul mouth of Trish (Molly Shannon) to the Type A superwoman Michelle (Liz Strauber) and the patient Dana (Rosemarie Dewitt), the women are so honest, intelligent, and attractive that it is mystifying why they are with these handsome lugs when they are affectionately calling them morons or yelling at them to grow up. Julep (Elizabeth Reaser), as the new date on the block, doesn’t add much insight other than being a head-shaking outsider to the men’s repeating patterns of behavior. The young sexy Swedish nanny Elsa (Camilla Thorsson), who doesn’t seem to spend much time with her sole infant charge, predictably sparks nostalgia for frat parties. Most of the ensemble has been very appealing in TV series and elsewhere, but writer/director/producer Bruce Leddy (an alumnus of his college a cappella group) only gives them some chuckles to deliver.

There is nothing new here that hasn’t already been seen in decades of Peter Pan portraits, from Paddy Chayefsky’s 1957 script of The Bachelor Party through Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983 The Big Chill (with better music) and the many similar recent films by the current regretful generation, including Edward Burns’s The Groomsman, Zach Braff-starrer The Last Kiss, and the more cerebral Old Joy.

Though Sean Altman, a founding member of the seminal a cappella group Rockapella, was the music consultant, the music is disappointing, blandly reinterpreting the likes of Phil Collins, Sting, Coldplay, and the Gershwins into sounding like barbershop quartets. To enjoy a stellar international variety of a cappella music, including Rockapella, check out the Spike Lee-hosted Do It A Cappella that was originally a PBS special. Nora Lee Mandel
April 27, 2007