If you want to discuss Meet the Parents as a work of cinematic art, you're already in the wrong room. As far as 'quality filmmaking' is concerned, it's actually a fairly slipshod movie. The screenplay is dull when it's not engaged in a 'gag scene', and other than the two stars, the movie has almost nothing worth recommending: No subtext or depth, nothing resembling a realistic character or emotion.
Based on a short film of the same name, Meet the Parents is pretty much just a one-joke comedy. While that would be faint praise indeed for most comedies, the one joke is enough in this case. If two actors are this much fun to watch, I'm certainly willing to forgive things like superfluous characters, predictable plot twists, and sloppy direction. Good thing Stiller is on hand to steal the show entirely.
It's still a good movie, because it made me laugh pretty hard and fairly often. Only those stick-up-the-ass type critics could bash a movie like this for not being Schindler's List. You could just as easily call this The Ben Stiller Movie, and I mean that as a compliment.
Stiller plays a nice guy named Greg Focker. Yeah, Focker - pretty funny, right? Wait until you hear it repeated the 17th time, and I'll ask you that again. Note to screenwriter Jim Herzfeld: The dirty-sounding name gag was old when Jackie Gleason was a fetus. It's one of the weaker gags in the movie, so it only stands to reason that it needed to be done over and over.
Greg wants to marry his pretty girlfriend Pam (the very vanilla Teri Polo), but first he has to spend a weekend with her stern and suspicious father Jack, who is played wonderfully by DeNiro. Apparently I'm the only person on Earth who didn't enjoy DeNiro doing comedy in Analyze This, but that may have just been because that movie pretty much sucked wind. In Meet the Parents, DeNiro stands back and generally plays the straight-man to Stiller's lunatic. When he does get a few laughs to himself, it's because he has created a truly menacing character. In Analyze This, he was a caricature.
Although Greg tries repeatedly to get on Jack's good side, he seems to have the luck of Clark Griswold. In scene after scene, Greg consistently says and does the worst thing possible, although always by accident. He defiles an urn full of Grandma's ashes, almost burns down the house, abuses the beloved family housecat, and even manages to drown the front lawn in 5 inches of doody. With a different actor, these pratfalls could easily have grown tiresome and redundant, but Ben Stiller is a comic tornado for 90 minutes.
Even a mention of the supporting characters is more than they deserve, since none of them do anything! The always reliable Blythe Danner is seemingly ignored by the camera, and character actor James Rebhorn shows up for no reason at all as a future in-law. Why even bother paying recognizable actors if you're not going to let them join in the fun? Even the great Owen Wilson is completely wasted as Pam's millionaire ex-boyfriend. Come ON - How hard is it to let Owen Wilson be a little funny?
I keep forgetting that I liked this movie. Simply put, Ben Stiller is very funny. That's as clear as I can be. His reactions to dialogue, his intermittent stammering and stumbling, even the way he enters the room is funny. It's clear he comes from great comedy lineage; his parents (Jerry Stiller & Anne Meara) have stayed funny for over 40 years now. If you can sit through There's Something About Mary and Meet the Parents, and still not be a Stiller fan, I doubt you even have a sense of humor.
With some movies, it's simply a question of 'give and take'. While Meet the Parents definitely lacks several components necessary to make it a great film, it does offer two supremely entertaining actors and several truly funny scenes. It may not win any awards, but Meet the Parents is a 'crowd-pleaser' I'm not ashamed to admit I enjoyed.
This movie smashed box-office records for October, and Jim Herzfeld was quickly hired to pen a sequel. While Stiller and DeNiro haven't committed yet, it's safe to assume they soon will, based on the truckloads of money they'll be offered. Director Jay Roach is on tap to direct the sequel, once he gets all finished with something called Austin Powers 3.
MEET THE PARENTS stars Ben Stiller as the unfortunately named Greg Focker a neurotic nurse intent on marrying his girlfriend Pam Teri Polo. But when t...More at Family Video
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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