Review of Meet the Parents (2000) by Harry W — 11 Dec 2012

The high point in Meet the Parents comes from the friction between Greg Focker and Jack Byrnes. The intensity that comes from the characters that flicks between Robert De Niro's comical interrogation and Bet Stiller's attempts to counter the situation well. It also has a hilarious sense of mystery stemming from the secret twist behind Jack Byrnes.

Also, although many people were less impressed by the Sitcom humour, I appreciated the idea of that sort of comical execution. There was even enough humour in the facial expressions.

I also enjoyed the way it looked at the family relationships and intensified the situations with awkward silence in the humour.

The other high point of Meet the Parents was the screenplay which knew important comical timing and great lines for the ideal characters. It developed the characters well enough before it even required the actors to.

Meet the Parents also has an interesting story format because of how it becomes a series of events that gets worse and worse until the climax where things start to look up, which is the opposite of the standard story format. The climax where things start to tug at the heart a little bit.

Robert De Niro was hilarious and even had a good few dramatic moments in there which displayed talent on several levels of being an actor. It's a surprisingly hilarious performance he gives that manages to still capture the intense mind he had in films such as Taxi Driver and The Godfather Part II.

Ben Stiller plays his stereotypical awkward character and it's hilarious here because of the odd situations that get thrown at him that he acts his way through and around very well. Focker just can NOT catch a break, it's hilarious. But you're always on his side and you witness him develop him hilariously well.

The supporting characters add good aspects to the story, and Teri Polo and Blyth Danner add good support to the dramatic side of the story. Owen Wilson was also good as whenever he teams up with Ben Stiller.

So yeah, Meet the Parents is very clever, it's original, it's very funny and it maintains a level of sophistication regardless of the disaster comedy. It's absolutely worth watching, especially for the comedic turn by talented actor Robert De Niro.