Meet The Parents
Sometimes a widely respected dramatic actor gets to the point of his career where either because his best performances in serious movies are so iconic that they can never be topped or maybe because his intensity levels are so noticeably lowered that he feels that itâs time to make a change, that same actor decides to almost exclusively focus his late career options into the realms of cinematic comedy, presumably to throw off audiences into thinking that heâs experimenting when really he just has nowhere left to go at that point. This brings us to the case of Robert DeNiro, a guy whose Hall Of Fame status as one of the greatest actors of all time was literally cemented decades ago and in many ways it appeared for him that taking on more comedies might just be cashing in on doing self parody for many of those more famous roles starting with his lame duck spoof of his gangster / Mafia roles in 1999âs Analyze This with Billy Crystal. This 2000 effort was much more successful in its execution and it should have been, teaming DeNiro with Austin Powers helmer Jay Roach in the directorâs chair and a more capable comedic co star in one Ben Stiller (who himself had famously spoofed DeNiroâs Cape Fear performance on his old sketch comedy show in the early 90s). Thankfully, Roach makes sure that Stiller gets to be the one who is the lead character and actual star of the movie while DeNiro in his part is more akin to strategic casting (with others including Christopher Walken and Al Pacino considered for his role). Stiller plays Greg Focker, a happy go lucky male nurse with one huge advantage in his life: a gorgeous, preppy blonde girlfriend (Teri Polo) whom he intends to marry if he can just figure out the right time and place to propose. Turns out that opportunity might just be coming up soon when her sister (Nicole DeHuff, also a gorgeous girl who died tragically at age 30 from what was said to be pneumonia) announces her own engagement and wedding plans, which means that Focker and his girl are now going to fly in from Chicago to the beautiful upstate New York suburb where her parents live to not only meet them, but (as his evasive girlfriend finally tells him is mandatory in her family) to ask her father (DeNiro) for formal permission to marry his daughter. Turns out that DeNiro on first impression is a hard edged asshole, judging his daughterâs boyfriend on literally every word that comes out of his mouth and almost every gesture he makes. Allegedly a retired florist, it soon comes out that DeNiro is a (supposedly) retired CIA analyst specializing in psychology and his suspicions of Focker are only magnified by what he perceives to be Fockerâs acceptance of marijuana (which DeNiro obviously hates) as being a perfectly harmless drug. But, spurred on by his daughter and peace making wife (Blythe Danner), DeNiro sits down to dinner with this family newcomer during which we get a horribly unfunny bit involving his motherâs ashes. But the situation gets even worse when the engaged sister and her in laws arrive (including a medical doctor fiancĂ©e with a plastic surgeon dad who relentlessly mock Focker for being a male nurse) which leads to what appears to be extended rounds of bullying on poor Focker who takes it all in stride because of his love for DeNiroâs daughter (one look at Teri Poloâs body and we can see why) when many a real life American male would just say fuck it pretty quickly, dump the girlfriend even quicker and then get as far away from this family of elitist assholes as soon as possible, but still Focker sticks with it, his anxiety amplified by being cut off from smoking cigarettes (something his girlfriend doesnât even bother to tell him until they pull up at the house that it will make a bad impression on DeNiro because he considers smoking to be a âsign of weaknessâ) and resulting in his unintentionally causing several accidents to happen (including burning the sisterâs wedding altar) so that DeNiro and the sisterâs plastic surgeon father in law to be can find more reason to bully and berate him some more. So how is any of this funny? Fortunately, itâs because we have a legitimate comedic talent like Ben Stiller taking it upon himself to play the constantly put upon schmuck and overall handling it pretty damn well, even drawing some serious empathy as he feels more isolated even from his girlfriend whom most of the time either says the wrong thing to her dad or doesnât even seem to care that her beloved is basically being tortured merely for being new to the family as a big part of the story hinges on whether or not sheâll finally do the right thing and see her family for what they are. But at least Stiller is there not only to play the fool, but to keep DeNiro honest in the comedy department by successfully playing off of him even when the character just becomes so monstrous in his nature (keeping constant surveillance cameras in his home focused on Stiller and his own polygraph machine which he happily hooks him up to) that we ourselves have to question whether we would ever want to even KNOW a guy like this in real life. The filmâs writing also hits a major snag with the introduction (and not much else) of DeNiroâs teenage son (Jon Abrahams), seemingly the textbook definition of everything that DeNiro would NOT want his son to be from listening to gangster rap music to being an obvious pothead (and possibly worse) yet DeNiro is strangely portrayed as being completely oblivious of his own sonâs issues (which is completely unrealistic given how he puts poor Focker through the wringer) which begs the question: Is he in denial? Or does the kid literally have all of his bases covered so well in having an ex CIA dad that heâs got the old man completely fooled? These questions are never answered since the character of the son fades so completely into the background as the film goes on that we only get the impression that DeNiro is seemingly a complete hypocrite, imposing harsher standards upon poor Focker (in truth just a likable, regular guy being unfairly treated) than his own son which is NOT a good strategy to make us really like the character too much. The saving grace within Fockerâs neverending nightmare comes in the form of Owen Wilson as Poloâs ex fiancĂ©e, a character whom youâd expect to be the worst of them all but in the hands of Wilson (who reportedly walked onto the set and just started making the entire character up himself as he went along complete with nuances) we get his usual shallow airhead schtick even as he also turns out to be the only one who actually treats Focker with at least some level of dignity and respect (which leaves Focker taken aback a little since heâs obviously aware of and uncomfortable with him being Poloâs ex) and appears to be pretty much a bored hedonist who made a sizeable amount of money fairly quickly and easily (i.e. he played the stock market and got lucky) and also seems to carry his own sense of isolation around with him even as DeNiro treats him like one of his favorite people. While Wilson doesnât really steal the movie, he does represent a nice change of pace from the mostly negative, toxic types that Focker is forced to deal with throughout the rest of the film. Even as the story is obviously forced to shift gears on the notion of DeNiro finally coming around with his mentality despite a chaotic situation involving the family cat (whom DeNiro has a far too pronounced fixation on), the film stays watchable through Stillerâs ability to handle all of the shit he has being thrown at him even as his nervousness leads to him making his own mistakes half of the time with barely an ounce of moral support from anybody. The ending with Focker attempting to âescapeâ only for DeNiro to catch up with him for a final confrontation in order for them to âwork out their issuesâ succeeds based solely on the fact that we finally get to see Stiller win out after everything that he’s been forced to put up with (and also with him getting to put DeNiro at least partially in his place for being such an utter asshole). Thankfully, there was significant room for improvement as this filmâs success would open the door for a sequel and eventually a full trilogy as the filmmakers would smartly up the ante going forward and give both DeNiro and Stiller more to work with when it came to generating better comedyâŠ
5/10