The Third Time Doesn't Charm Much With Little Fockers

I got home from a long trip the other day, and yesterday a friend of mine called me up to welcome me back and see if I wanted to go to the movies. We have two major movie theaters here in town, one of which is a dollar theater. The nice thing about the dollar theater, of course, is that it’s cheap. The not-so-nice part is that there are a lot fewer movies to choose from, so you’re more likely to end up watching something you’d rather not pay full price for anyway. Last night’s movie was Little Fockers, the third installment in the Meet the Parents series starring Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro.

It took me until last year to finally see Meet the Parents, and I never did see the sequel, Meet the Fockers. I didn’t really need to, though; this movie filled in the gaps sufficiently, which mainly involve Greg’s (Stiller) touchy-feely parents, stay-at-home dad Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) and television sex therapist Roz (Barbra Streisand). Greg is a nurse and a devoted family man. He’s a very decent guy, which begins to really hit home for his intimidating father-in-law, Jack Byrnes (DeNiro), after his other son-in-law cheats on his wife and takes off. A mild heart attack leaves this towering giant of a patriarch shaken and determined to see Greg carry on as family protector if anything should happen to him.

As in the first movie, Stiller and DeNiro have a great dynamic. Both of them are likable, but it’s easy to see how they drive each other crazy. While the first movie is very heavy on the slapstick and requires Greg to do several incredibly stupid things, in this movie, the disasters that happen really aren’t his fault. Some cringe-worthy moments do occur, but I felt like I was able to root for him more in this movie since he really is in the right most of the time, and he’s trying very hard to do well by his wife, his children and his in-laws. Meanwhile, Jack’s behavior in this movie is pretty reasonable as well. He’s looking out for his family too, and his limited point of view, along with a generally suspicious outlook, causes him to come to unfortunate but understandable conclusions. The wives, Dina Byrnes and Pam Focker (Blythe Danner and Teri Polo), have minimal roles, just playing it straight and supportive as their husbands lose their heads.

The plot of the movie is driven by miscommunication and one extremely over-the-top new character. The in-laws have come to town for the fifth birthday party of the Focker twins, precocious Samantha (Daisy Tahan) and dopey Henry (Colin Baiocchi). It’s not for a few days, though, so that’s plenty of time for trouble to develop. Most of that trouble involves Greg’s involvement with a perky drug rep named Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba). For some reason, she is really eager for him to be one to give a speech about her company’s new drug at an upcoming convention. And he could use the money, especially since he is in the process of trying to get his kids into an exclusive private school. But he doesn’t want Jack to know about the convention, since he wants him to think he is totally financially secure, and leaving the father-in-law out of the loop on this little detail leads to big problems later on. It doesn’t help, either, that Pam’s ex, guileless golden boy Kevin (Owen Wilson), returns to town just before the party after Greg’s advice about how to propose to his supermodel girlfriend backfires on him.

Basically, I like the main characters in the movie, except for Andi, who seems to ooze phoniness and spends the entire movie flinging herself relentlessly at a married man. I’m really not sure why. I kept looking for some sinister motivation, but it seems the only explanation for her behavior is that she has a mad crush on Greg and won’t let anything stand in the way of her having her way with him. While Greg thinks she’s a knockout, it’s a mark of his character that he is never tempted to give in to her advances. But that can’t stop her from putting him in a couple of very compromising positions. I found myself cringing most of the time when she was on screen, and her totally unprofessional behavior made me wonder how she managed to hang onto her job.

Aside from her, what really annoyed me about the movie was the gross-out humor. There’s the tedious tittering over Greg’s full name, with his birth name of Gaylord coming up several times at awkward moments, particularly with Prudence (Laura Dern), the spacey director of the school he wants his children to attend. There’s the fact that the drug he’s supposed to be hawking is basically Viagara for heart patients, so you can imagine the eye-rolling jokes there, especially the piercingly uncomfortable moment highlighted in the previews in which Greg must administer a shot to counteract the drug’s effects after Jack takes some on the sly. And given the profession of Greg’s mother, almost everything she says has some sort of sexual connotation, and that gets old fast. Finally, along with all the lewd humor, there are disgusting moments like Henry barfing all over his father or Greg taking a chunk out of his hand while carving a turkey, which, if I’m remembering right, pretty much happened in the first movie and was unpleasant enough then.

The first two movies did really well at the box office, and at this point the third movie just feels like the cast and writers trying to stretch the series out beyond its natural end point. The movie concludes in such a way that it seems to be baiting us for yet another sequel, and at this point I can’t help thinking it’s a little excessive. DeNiro and Stiller do make a great team, and Little Fockers has its moments of humor and sweetness. But I think this is a franchise that has run its course.

Robert DeNiro Turns Ben Stiller Into a Bumbling Buffoon in Meet the Parents

When I was taking guitar lessons, one of the songs I played was Puff the Magic Dragon, which prompted my teacher to ask if I’ve ever seen Meet the Parents. He explained that the song’s marijuana-related interpretation was discussed in the movie, which he deemed hilarious, so when a friend decided to give away her VHS collection and Meet the Parents was on the list, I put in my request. Last night I finally got to see whether I agreed with his assessment.

Ben Stiller plays Greg Focker, a low-key, likable guy who works as a nurse, a profession he enjoys because it allows him to have such close contact with patients. He’s been dating Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo), a sweet-natured kindergarten teacher, and he’s cooked up an adorable marriage proposal that gets her students in on the big moment. But before he can pop the question, Pam gets a call from her sister Deborah informing her of her engagement, which was preceded by her fiance’s asking her father for permission. Hence, Greg decides that he needs to ask permission as well.

He gets his chance two weeks later, when he accompanies Pam home for the weekend for Deborah’s wedding. After a fairly congenial initial meeting, Greg and Pam’s father, Jack (Robert DeNiro), get off on the wrong foot when Pam lets it slip that Greg hates cats. Then, on the way to the store, Greg cracks a joke about Puff the Magic Dragon that offends Jack and makes him suspect that his daughter’s boyfriend is a pothead. What follows is a weekend of increasing disaster as keyed-up Greg manages to make just about every possible mis-step.

My parents aren’t especially big fans of Ben Stiller, but I usually find his performances pretty enjoyable. Here, he’s easy to sympathize with; he certainly sells us on the awkwardness of the situation. On the other hand, Greg does some incredibly stupid things, like lying to Jack throughout the weekend even though he knows how deeply this man values honesty and how skilled he is at knowing when someone is lying. Most of his stupidest moves involve Jack’s beloved, talented cat, Mr. Jinx, a thorn in his side from the moment they meet. It doesn’t help that not only Jack but Deborah’s fiance and his father all find it hilarious that he is a nurse. At least Pam’s mom (Blythe Danner) is pretty accepting of Greg, but she doesn’t have the forceful personality of those around her.

As amusing as Stiller is in his role, it’s DeNiro who steals the show with his understated but intimidating performance as a man who is deeply devoted to his daughter and incredibly suspicious of anyone who wants to sweep her off her feet. The dynamic between him and Greg is intense, with the latter constantly feeling threatened despite Jack’s frequent friendly overtures. By the end of the weekend, I found myself more sympathetic toward Jack than Greg, since Greg is such a walking disaster who manages to wreak incredible havoc on this man’s home in a couple of short days.

This movie, like the recently released Dinner for Schmucks and dozens of similar movies, is largely dependent upon mass destruction. A broken vase here, a broken nose there, and before you know it you’re watching a sewage-filled backyard go up in flames. It all gets to feel a bit excessive, especially since you can see most of the disasters coming from a mile away. Still, many of the gags are funny, and DeNiro and Stiller are great together. I also got a kick out of Owen Wilson, who so often appears in movies alongside Stiller, as Pam’s wealthy, affable ex-fiance Kevin, who is such an earnest Christian that he has decided to take up carpentry, for which he has an exceptional talent. While Kevin may be a bit over-the-top, I found nothing unlikable about him, and I would be curious to see how he might be integrated into the second and third movies in the series.

Meet the Parents is a less offensive movie than I might have expected from Jay Roach, who also directed the Austin Powers series. While there is some innuendo, it’s certainly not at an Austin level, and there’s little profanity, since this weekend is all about making a good impression on a fairly conservative family - though the characters do have way too much fun with Greg’s last name. What it does have in spades is cringe-worthy scenes involving the obliteration of personal property, so if you find that sort of thing gets old really fast, this movie might not be for you. But alongside the mishaps is the story of two young people who are deeply committed to one another and two parents who have very different approaches but both want to see their daughter happy. For that, I’m willing to wade through a little sludge.