| Director | Dennis Dugan |
|---|---|
| Genre | LGBT-related film, buddy film, romantic comedy |
| Runtime | 90 min |
| Country | Australia, United States |
| Budget | $22 million |
| Box office | $26.1 million |
Darren Silverman, Wayne LeFessier, and J.D. McNugent, best friends since fifth grade and Neil Diamond fans throughout, form a Neil Diamond tribute band called Diamonds in the Rough.
Through a chance encounter in a local bar after a band gig, Darren meets Judith Fessbeggler, a beautiful but domineering psychologist who shows signs of being emotionally abusive. Six weeks into their relationship, Darren asks her if they could finally have sex, but Judith refuses until marriage. She suggests non-penetrative sex instead, so Darren gets nothing but a sore jaw.
Judith isolates Darren from his friends, demands that he quit the band, receive humiliating medical procedures, and attend relationship counseling under her care. Wayne and J.D. decide to save Darren from her by attempting to bribe her, arm wrestle her, and finally shock her with faked photographs of Darren cheating, all to no avail.
The friends, undaunted, try to reunite Darren with his "one and only" high school sweetheart, Sandy Perkus, when she returns to Seattle before she takes her final vows as a nun. When Darren and Judith announce their engagement, in which Darren would take her last name, Wayne and J.D. kidnap her. However, she discovers the identity of her captors, and the duo are convinced they cannot let her go. Despite sending Darren a fake break-up letter from Judith, Darren is unwilling to forget about her, so Wayne and J.D. stage Judith's fake death using her car and a cadaver dug up from a cemetery and send them over a cliff.
When they visit their high school football coach, Coach Norton, in jail for accidentally killing a referee with a football signal pole in a fit of rage, Norton suggests they just kill her. The pair attempt to shoot Judith, but end up deciding against it. Sandy's feelings for Darren are reawakened, but their attempted date is ruined by his preoccupation with Judith. Sandy, disheartened, returns to the convent, but Darren snaps out of it and runs the there to win her back.
Chained to an engine block in Wayne's garage, Judith helps J.D. come to terms with the fact that he is gay. Taking advantage of the situation, she knocks him unconscious to steal his keys and escape, only to be chased down and tranquilized by Wayne, an exterminator. Returned to the garage, Judith seduces him into releasing one of her hands and reveals her last fiancé was killed in an underground Muay Thai fight. Coach Norton is paroled and discovers Judith is still alive, so he attempts to kill her and she escapes again. She runs to Darren's house in time to see him kiss Sandy, but shames him into confessing his engagement to her while revealing what really happened to her. Sandy, disappointed, returns to the convent again.
Darren has Wayne and J.D. arrested. Escaping from jail with Coach Norton's help, J.D. and Wayne rush to the convent on the brink of Sandy's final vows as a nun. Convincing her that Darren still loves her, they then kidnap Neil Diamond and urge him to help save Darren from a disastrous marriage and reunite him with Sandy.
At the wedding, Neil stalls the proceedings with the song "Hello Again", to which Darren comes to terms with himself and reunites with Sandy. Wayne and Judith (the latter furious that her wedding is ruined) beat each other up (as love play) only to wind up making out, and J.D. arrives holding Coach in his arms, who coincidentally reveals to J.D. that he too is gay. All three couples then wed onstage at Neil Diamond's concert in which Diamond ministered the reunions: Darren to Sandy, Wayne to Judith, and J.D. to Coach. The show begins as Diamond starts singing with Darren, Wayne, and J.D. playing their instruments while Judith, Sandy, and Norton are the back-up singers.