Grade: C-

Like Orson Welles, Edward Burns acts in other people’s movies so that he can make his own. The difference is that Welles was a genius; on the evidence of the series of pictures he’s made over the past decade (starting with “The Brothers McMullen” in 1995), Burns most definitely is not. His semi-autobiographical tales have consisted mostly of navel-gazing among middle-class suburban New York guys fumbling toward maturity. Unfortunately, it appears that as a filmmaker Burns is having as much difficulty maturing as his characters do.

This time around, the catalyst for all the melodramatics is the upcoming wedding of Paulie (Burns), a smoothie who’s lived for two years with his girlfriend Sue (Brittany Murphy), and is now marrying her partially because she’s more than five months pregnant. The event is the occasion for more time together than ever between him and the neighborhood pals who will serve as his groomsmen–his older bro Jimbo (Donal Logue), his cousin Mikey (Jay Mohr) and bartender Des (Matthew Lillard)–and the return after many years of their erstwhile buddy T.C. (John Leguizamo), who left town abruptly after having stolen one of Mikey’s prized baseball cards (something for which Mikey’s never forgiven him) and has since been out of touch. The guys, it turns out, are a pretty loud, boisterous, cretinous bunch–they make an awful lot of racket–and they all have emotional difficulties they have to wrestle with and talk endlessly about. Though the steadiest of the group, Paulie isn’t completely ready for marriage and fatherhood, and finds it hard to deal with his fiancée’s need for attention. Jimbo has a secret concerning his own paternity prospects, which makes him irritable, prone to say nasty things, and on the verge of wrecking his not-so-happy home. Mikey’s just been dumped by his girlfriend and is effectively stalking her, bringing on a confrontation with her protective brother. Des, despite a paean he delivers to Paulie about his devotion to his two boys, seems, from what we see, to have a rather strained relationship with them, and is almost psychotically obsessed with reconstituting the quintet’s old rock band for one final performance at the rehearsal dinner (he obviously looks back on his “career” as a rocker as the real high point of his life). And T.C. confesses the reason he left town so suddenly and broke off contact not only with his chums but also with his estranged father (Let’s just say they’ll not be celebrating his wedding soon, unless it’s in Massachusetts.).

There’s an insistently calculated feel to all of these personal problems, and the pat way each of them is ultimately resolved never seems remotely credible. Nor do the various episodes where the chain of arguments and reconciliations are staged–a soft-ball game, a visit to a “gentleman’s club,” a confrontation at Des’s saloon, a series of in-house altercations between Paulie and Sue, a fishing trip, a walk along the boardwalk–ever convince as real events; they come across merely as clumsily mounted opportunities for Burns to spin out his rather banal dialogue and lame bits of humor. And the exclusive focus on the five men leaves the action happening in a vacuum. The four female characters–Sue, Mikey’s ex-girlfriend, Des’s spouse and Jimbo’s long-suffering wife–are strictly peripheral. And what’s to be made of the fact that the sole other family member introduced into the action is Mikey’s gruff father, with whom he still lives? In the days immediately preceding a wedding, wouldn’t Paulie’s extended family, or Sue’s relatives–or at least her bridesmaids–be all over the place? But they’re all conspicuous by their absence.

As to the central quintet themselves, they’re just not interesting or likable enough–either as written or as played–to keep us interested or amused. Paulie himself is a boringly nice guy, and Burns plays him stiffly. (He appears to have no job, as far as one can tell. Maybe his brother’s right in accusing him of marrying Sue for her money.) Logue makes Jimbo a persuasively troubled soul, but not a particularly sympathetic one. Mohr comes on so strong as the adolescent Mikey that you feel he’s escaped from the supporting cast of a particularly crass Fox sitcom. Indeed, he resembles the manic Lillard of yore, rather than the more subdued one on display here as Des. And Leguizamo’s customary exuberance is similarly muted as he plays a quiet voice of sanity amidst more unstable pals. Like Burns’s previous six movies, “The Groomsmen” is a very modest production, though William Rexer II’s widescreen lensing makes it look reasonably good. (Robert Gary’s score is recorded at too loud a volume, though.)

One positive thing you can say about the movie, however, is that, filmed on location as it is, it does convey a sense of place. Unfortunately, after you spend an hour and a half in the company of these guys, you’ll probably be happy you don’t live in their neighborhood, nice as it looks, and have to put up with obnoxious people like them on a regular basis.