Daily News from New York, New York • 1583

ltW I'K- VJM Vf SI TJeaMoinigs9: lnJMy mmze Visiles By JAMI BERNARD rected "Enchanted April," another British-humored comedy about four women finding their heart's desire during a restorative vacation in Italy. "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is sim-ilar in that the main characters reach epiphanies by talking things out with one another over the course of several vignettes. MacDowell gives him a Highland fling just a few months before her own Scottish wedding. No. 3 in the movie.

There are, as you'd suspect, two other weddings and a funeral to round out the cycle of life and the cycle of Mike Newell's hectic but tasteful equivalent of a drawing-room comedy. Newell most recently di self always a bridesmaid, never a bride so to speak. His redemption appears to arrive at the first of the movie's weddings in the form of Andie MacDowell, who arouses in Charles little flut-terings that start at his eyelids and move, presumably, to his nether regions. It's the closest Charles has ever come to love at first sight The Richard Curtis screenplay is as tightly wound as the springs on alarm clocks the ones that never seem to wake Charles early enough to get him to the church on time. Always running late, Charles and his roommate spend several anxious scenes speaking only in variations of the F-word as they scramble out of bed and down the street for wedding after wedding.

The script is at its best when it is thus delightfully spare. One-liners and intercepted half-liners are batted back and forth like Ping-Pong balls; no character lacks for a smart rejoinder. A typical throwaway moment: "I'm training to be a priest," says one; "Good Lord!" replies another. Grant does that shy-guy thing that he's been doing so well, but he is often eclipsed by the scene-stealing Simon Callow as one of his friends, a man who truly loves a good time. British comic Rowan Atkinson doesn't have to steal his scene as a befuddled novice priest the camera anoints him with sainthood.

Love, sex, animal magnetism and awful toasts by the best man are gently lampooned. We learn that there's no accounting for taste and that anything said in a cultured British accent sounds awfully droll. and Hugh Grant are nearly-weds in "Four Weddings and a Funeral." DaHy News Movie Critic Vis FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL With Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Simon Callow. Directed by Mike Newell. At Loews 19th Loews N.Y.

Twin. Running time: 117 minutes. Rated R. BRIDE LOOKS 1 1 like a big meringue!" observes one of the amusing wedding guests at one of the amusing weddings in "Four Weddings and a Funeral." (The funeral is not meant to be quite so amusing.) It's a cheeky British comedy in which everyone gets dissed rather succinctly in a dry British accent Love, sex, animal magnetism and awful toasts are lampooned. The ubiquitous Hugh Grant is back (he's also in of the Day," "Sirens" and next week's "Bitter as the earnest, puzzled Charles.

He is a perennial bachelor who, with his circle of similarly single, bon-mot buddies, finds him difhs By JAM! BERNARD Daily News Movie Critic V2 THE REF. With Kevin Spacey. Judy Davis, Denis Leary. Directed by Ted Demme. At the Sutton.

Running time: 92 minutes. Rated R. G3 YSFUNCTIONAL FAM- ily cinema gets a work out in "The Ref," a bi- zarrely funny comedy about a bickering couple who hold their kidnaper hostage with their endless spats. The referee of the title is unlucky cat burglar Gus (Denis Leary), who bungles a job and makes his getaway by holding a gun to the heads of Caroline and Lloyd Chasseur (Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey). He demands the couple drive him to their nearby house so he can tie them up and plan his escape.

Unfortunately, he picked the wrong couple. It's Christmas Eve, and the Chasseurs are coming home from a particularly vitriolic appointment with a marriage Lloyd complained about the lack of sex and Caroline- recalled that when they did have it, "it wasn't all that noteworthy." Still fuming, the couple find that being kidnaped by a crazed gunman is the least of fele-Teani Hie lf QUIP-ZOTIC: Andie MacDowell BOUND TO DISPLEASE: Kevin their worries. "I hijacked my groans Gus as Caroline and Lloyd continue to snipe at each other even with a gun pressed to the temples. When the three arrive at chez Chasseur, Caroline and. Lloyd find fresh fault with one other as each tries to cope with the inconvenience of being held hostage on a night pas-sy ion mw: 'A'v i' Spacey and Judy Davis play a couple when dinner guests are due.

The arrival of the whole family, including Caroline's hated mother-in-law (Glynis Johns), creates a farcical situation where dinner proceeds as usual which is to say, with both barrels blazing while Gus, his gun hidden, poses as a marriage counselor on a house call. Standup comic Leary is cer Method Neurosis. Whether helping her kidnaper locate bungee cords so he can tie her up or explaining with a straight face why her guests must wear ridiculous candlelit wreaths on their heads at dinner, Davis brings an edgy chaos to her scenes, like a dog that seems friendly just before it tears a hunk out of you. No less hilarious is Spacey, a fine stage actor in who has been shamefully underused in movies (although he was well showcased as the office manager in "Glengarry Glen Spacey overcomes his disconcertingly average appearance with an impeccable sense of comic timing. Director Ted Demme leaves his first feature, the hopeless rap film "Who's the in the dust The Ref is focused, funny, snappy, bracing and manages a message about love and Christmas cheer without turning to treacle.

Perhaps he was helped in this endeavor by one of his Uncle Jonathan's "Silence of the Lambs" producers, Ron Bozman; another one, Ed Saxon, has a bit part Although the title makes it sound like a sports documentary, don't be fooled: It's Chas-seur Family Values gift-wrapped in bungee cords. r( it'-' held hostage in "The Ref. tainly fine as the desperado, but it is the brilliant teaming of Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey that sends this comedy into the twilight zone of domestic disputes. Ever since her star turn in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives," as a newly single woman who tries dating before her heart is in it, Davis has cornered the market on 1.