Josh Gad (left) and Kevin Hart show off their dance moves in “The Wedding Ringer.”

The question going into The Wedding Ringer, which opens Friday, is whether Kevin Hart and Josh Gad can generate enough laughs to carry a plot that looks like “Hitch 2: The Wedding.”

The answer is yes – though they have help from a surprisingly eclectic cast.

Gad (The Book of Mormon, 1600 Penn) plays Doug Harris, a wealthy tax attorney with no family and no friends. Kind of a schlubby guy, he somehow is about to marry Gretchen Palmer, played by Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting (The Big Bang Theory, 8 Simple Rules) but has nobody to stand up for him at the altar. Hart is Jimmy Callahan, the “ringer” Doug hires to be his best man, Bic Mitchem. (Product placement!)

To generate laughs from this otherwise sad scenario, Gad and Hart navigate a string of set pieces with Gretchen’s family and the group of goofy groomsmen that Johnny recruits – the latter bunch headlined by Jorge Garcia (Lost, Hawaii -Five-0).

Ken Howard (The White Shadow) plays obnoxious father of the bride Ed Palmer, who suckers the male cast members into a muddy game of “touch” football with his former college teammates – quarterbacked by Joe Namath (New York Jets, Super Bowl III).

Mimi Rogers (Austin Powers, Lost in Space) and Cloris Leachman (Mary Tyler Moore, Phyllis and Lassie) portray the mother and grandmother of the bride, respectively –big names in little roles. It’s particularly sad to see Leachman, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in The Last Picture Show (1971), again reduced to playing a senile grandma who is the butt of physical humor (Raising Hope, Beerfest). Then again, Rogers isn’t given much to do at all in The Wedding Ringer.

The biggest surprise is Olivia Thirlby (The Wackness, Juno) as the bride’s sister. Not just because she is great – she is one of my favorite actresses – but also because it is hard to imagine her in a romcom. I think of Thirlby in more thought-provoking films, acting with the likes of Ben Kingsley, Allison Janney or J.K. Simmons. She is in only a few scenes but lights up each one. As is usual with Thirlby, less is more. During a film in which all the other characters are talking a mile a minute, Thirlby expresses as much or more with slight changes in facial expression, ranging from smile to smirk.

Cuoco-Sweeting is cast against type as the Bridezilla whose self-absorption has influenced her choice of groom. But her character is a stereotype; there isn’t much for the talented comedic actress to sink her teeth into. I suspect she probably found her Priceline.com commercials with William Shatner more interesting than this role. I know I did.

But Doug isn’t approaching the nuptials for the right reasons either. It simply takes him a while to figure that out. Just as his bride is “settling” for a guy who is sweet and can support her lifestyle, Doug simply doesn’t want to blow his opportunity to land the hottest chick who ever gave him a chance.

Then there is Johnny. Turns out that the professional best friend really has no close friends at all. Plenty of associates, but not friends. In fact, it falls to his secretary to give him the pep talk he needs to come through for Doug.

The moviemakers seem to have gone out of their way to secure an R rating. The bachelor party scene includes: one anonymous pair of breasts; implied fellatio; and implied bestiality – the first brief and unnecessary, the last disturbing – all of which could have been done without.

The sole redeeming aspect of that scene is that it gives us Australian actress Nicky Whelan as the bachelor-party girl. I describe her that way because it’s not clear just what she is. When she initially plops herself in Doug’s lap, one assumes she is a stripper. But after Doug is injured, she spends the night by his hospital bed – hardly what one would expect from a woman working on the clock. Obviously she is meant to be Doug’s true romantic prospect, but she’s really just the writers’ fantasy.

Still, when has a romcom ever been invested in reality? Such films are all about the good guys getting the girls with an implied happily ever after.

As such, The Wedding Ringer is a good date-night popcorn flick. Gad, Hart, Whelan and Thirlby imbue their characters with likability; the plot never gets lost; and the movie is funny right to the final line.

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Stu Robinson practices writing, editing, media relations and social media through his business, Phoenix-based Lightbulb Communications. He attended a Jan. 7 preview screening in Phoenix.

Tags: Cloris Leachman, Jorge Garcia, Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Ken Howard, Kevin Hart, Mimi Rogers, Nicky Whelan, Olivia Thirlby, The Wedding Ringer