“How you lose or keep your hair depends on how wisely you choose your parents."
Edward R. Nida
I can envision the people at Dreamworks coming up with the idea for Meet The Parents right now. One producer stops drinking his latte and reading Daily Variety long enough to get an idea. He turns to another studio honcho and says, “How about we make a sequel to There’s Something About Mary. It could be about Ben Stiller’s character going to spend time with Mary and her family. He plans to ask her father if he can have Mary’s hand in marriage but keeps getting sidetracked by hilarious events just like the ones in the first film. We can call it There’s Something About Mary’s Parents!” The other studio heads decide to make the public think they are being original by using this premise but instead of remake of a lesser known 1992 film named Meet The Parents and bring in Robert DeNiro and Blythe Danner as the zany parents!
Well those uninventive honchos should give themselves a pat on the back. Even though we have been through this territory before the jokes are still funny as heck and come at the audience like wildfire. Meet The Parents could have easily become another unfunny gross-out comedy along the lines of Road Trip and Scary Movie, but it’s charisma makes the film funnier than most films these days can even dream of being. Director Jay Roach was also involved with the Austin Powers films and to be quite honest, the audience I saw the film with laughed harder at Meet The Parents than either of the Powers films.
Ben Stiller is a sweet-hearted but easily irritated male nurse named Greg Focker. Yes, that is his name, which of course gives everyone in the film a reason to make fun of him. Greg wants to marry his girlfriend Pam, Teri Polo. Wanting to do this right he decides to first ask for permission from her father Jack, Robert DeNiro, when the two go to her parents for her sister’s wedding. If you thought that Meathead had problems with Archie Bunker then you have never met Jack.
Jack means well but he and his wife Dina, Blythe Danner, might be considered by some as lunatics. Jack is a former spy for the CIA and uses various devices like a polygraph machine and hidden cameras to check up on and intimidate poor Greg.
The rest of the film follows numerous episodes which turns the film into a great comedy of errors. How is Greg supposed to impress his future in-laws when he accidentally sets their house on fire and torments their cat, Mr. Jinx? The scenes with the cat can be hysterical but are way too reminiscent to the scenes Stiller had with the dog in There’s Something About Mary.
The reason the film is funnier than most films of the same genre is because it never talks down the audience or tries desperately to shock us. Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg did a good job developing a script that goes for outrageous laughs without the extremely vulgar humor. It has no need to do that when Stiller and DeNiro are so perfect together. DeNiro does an awesome job poking fun at his bad guy persona while Stiller does what he does best, react perfectly to mayhem and start to slowly go nuts from the madness.
If you are looking for subtle and inspired comedy you better go somewhere else. With any other cast or director the film probably would have crumbled. Even funnier premises have been ruined numerous times because of bad casting or misguided direction.
A warning to parents though, even though the film is PG-13 the humor is not for children. The numerous gags about Greg’s last name probably should have been enough to give the film an R rating.
Male nurse Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is poised to propose to his girlfriend Pam (Teri Polo) during a weekend stay at her parents home. But here s the ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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