Nothing could prepare you for the giant mess that Timothy Woodward Jr.’s Ready Or Not knock-off turns out to be. I mean, for a film to not be a satire and still come off as though it were parodying itself is the kind of well-rounded defeat that not even the overeager action sequences could have prevented. Treading the line between two timelines that seemingly come together to throw an off-registry deadly wedding gift the Bride’s way, Til Death Do Us Part doesn’t skimp on the bloodshed. Here’s how our gorgeous Bride-in-red aims for a life away from the one that’s been holding her hostage.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens in the Film?
If I were to guess why Til Death Do Us Part didn’t even bother naming most of its characters, I would’ve chalked it up to the creative team’s passion for “making something that’s never been made before”. But looking at just how little scope there is for any of them to leave even a surface-level impact on the audience, not having to remember their names only saves us the trouble of keeping track of who’s who. There’s something about the Bride (Natalie Burn) that screams an imminent case of cold feet. And when she does make a run for it, the veil of normalcy surrounding the wedding party and the Groom (Ser’Darius Blain) slips right away. Yet, there’s that Puerto Rican honeymoon where the Bride and Groom seem to be having the time of their lives. So much so that their PDA makes a couple nearby give them the stink eye. But that doesn’t mean the older couple, especially the Husband (Jason Patrick), would miss his shot at imparting some matrimonial wisdom to the newlyweds. Nothing is, of course, as it seems. And when we’re whisked back to the cabin the runaway Bride’s chosen as her refuge to chug wine straight from the bottle and sway to some classics, we watch as she’s surrounded by the aggressive Groomsmen and the wicked Best Man.
Why are the Groomsmen after the Bride?
You didn’t really believe that the Bride and Groom are actually “teachers” at some odd “university” with wicked rules, did you? It’s so obvious from the get-go that they’re actually assassins working for a crime syndicate that, in the real world, these two would’ve been killed by their own people for being too on the nose. The university has apparently bent its age-old rule of no romantic relationship between its employees because their love’s been convincing enough to melt the coldest of killers’ hearts. Now, why would the Bride be so ungrateful as to stand the Groom up at the altar, especially when theirs is such a special relationship?
The Best Man (Cham Gigandet), who’s a tad too eccentric and talks too much for his own good, didn’t put in the back-breaking work into his speech for nothing. The Bride really didn’t make it easy on the Groomsmen, who were planning to woo a few Bridesmaids by taking off and having them take on the responsibility of “containing” her. The agenda is simple; she wants out of all of it. And if that means dumping the love of her life on their wedding day and ripping her beautiful gown while butchering the cheeky Groomsmen, so be it. You’d do the same if you’d spent one more second listening to that annoying noise coming out of the Best Man’s mouth. That throat was asking to be sliced open.
Does the Bride get the freedom she wants?
Considering effort isn’t the film’s strongest suit, you’ve got to give Til Death Do Us Part props for at least trying to baffle you with the two juxtaposed timelines. Whether the trick works or not, you’re sort of expected to be bewildered at the freakish turn of events that must’ve taken place for the Bride and the Groom to get to their honeymoon and still be in love. The intrigue wears off quickly as the supremely obvious dots are connected, and the fact that the Puerto Rico timeline is from the past stares you right in the face. Something about the enigmatic Husband doesn’t sit quite right from the very beginning.
While the Wife (Nicole Arlyn) is reasonably friendly, the Husband seems to have ants in his pants as the couple shows the slightest interest in befriending them. He goes so far as to invite them aboard their residential boat. Out of the goodness of his heart? Not so much. From the looks of the gun he’s trying to cover with a plate, the Husband seems a tad too paranoid about the real intentions of his guests. Considering the Husband’s cryptic metaphor of the relationship between sharks and dolphins seems to go on for an eternity, you’d think that the rageful tears the Bride is struggling to hold back are brought forth by the pain of having to listen to it. But things are not as simple as they seem. It takes the Husband’s aggrieved rant to end for the real conflict to come to the surface. There’s a reason why they weren’t fit to be parents.
The older couple that sits before the Bride and the Groom were tangled up with the same university that the Bride is running from in the present timeline. Throwing down a challenge to the university’s draconian rules imposed on their assassins, they opted to live their lives by their own rules and have been on the run ever since. And even though the Bride and the Groom have come to do the job they were assigned, killing the rebels and setting an example, there’s something else fueling the Bride’s murderous rage. To protect themselves and the life they’d courageously built, the Husband had killed the Bride’s father, also an assassin sent by the university. And now that the score’s been settled and they’ve put an end to the blissful life the rebels had found away from all the bloodshed, it dawns on the Bride that she’s on the wrong side of things.
When the Bride and Groom’s youthful innocence was exploited by the university, they didn’t know what they were giving up by signing up for a life where love is unacceptable. It was only after seeing how wonderful love can be and still having to finish the job that they realized it was excruciating to hide what they felt for each other and deny themselves a shot at happiness. But while the Groom was content with the grand gesture by the dean of the university who’d given them permission to marry, the Bride was drawn to the mundane normalcy of life, something she’d never experience if she stayed at her job.
Til Death Do Us Part‘s ending compels the Bride to make the one choice that’ll define the rest of her life’s passage. The Groom’s way too brainwashed by the manipulative facade the university has donned to maintain its grasp on him. And if it has to be kill or be killed, there’s no better way for the Bride to make use of her training than to kill the man she loves for a chance at freedom. They’ll never stop coming after her. But she’d rather take her chances with a lifetime of being on the run than let anyone else have a say in how she decides to live her life.
