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The Movie: "Meet The Parents" is a bit of fun to watch for the two hour running time and although it never really goes too far off the track, I never felt that it was hugely successful in its quest for laughs, either. The film does a very good job at pulling the audience through a string of somewhat easy laughs, mainly gained out of the humilation thrown upon the main character, Greg Focker(Ben Stiller). Focker(say it to yourself and you'll get the joke) goes with his wife-to-hopefully-be Pam(Teri Polo) to get permission from her father. Things go downhill from there. Jack(Deniro) at first welcomes Greg into his home, but there are little things that put Greg at unease, such as Jack's sneaky nature, which begins to turn on Greg once he offers a few small lies, which Jack turns on him. Soon enough, Greg finds out that Jack has a secret past that involves the government, and where things were slowly building up against Greg, the mountain that he's created begins to fall upon him. The only problem with this is that it becomes mildly predictable. We know that Greg will find some new way of humiliating himself; it's just a matter of time before the next failure, and some we can see coming. Deniro is effectively menacing, but it would be a little more fun had he taken the character even further. Although I won't give away some of the film's funnier jokes, the family cat (who is toilet trained), plays a role in the comedic proceedings. Stiller does a fine job playing a slight variation on his "Something about Mary" character, and I think that Deniro was definitely funnier here than he was in "Analyze This". The female leads, Polo especially, don't really get much of a chance to take their characters that far. The romance between Stiller and Polo is okay, but not completely convincing. There are certainly some big laughs throughout the film, but director Jay Roach doesn't really have the timing here that he had in the "Austin Powers" films that he directed, which were sharper and faster with their humor than this is. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed "Meet The Parents", but I think there could have been a tighter film made out of the base elements - actors, script, etc. It's an above-average film that could have been even better. |