Meet the Fockers

The career of Dustin Hoffman has been much discussed here on the blog recently. See, what happened was, I wrote a review of Three Days of the Condor (check it out in the Now on DVD section to your right, won't you?). And in that review, I implied that Sydney Pollack was not as good a director as usually indicated, and that his crowning achievement, Tootsie, isn't the comedy classic most critics would have you believe.

And I heard about this from a few people. A few people who feel that Tootsie very much deserves its place in the Great Comedy pantheon. It's not a bad movie, mind you, and Hoffman's very good in it, but I still don't find it entirely satisfying. It's a little obvious in some ways, and I feel like it wants to be a pointed satire but lacks a truly great target. As I commented to Yancy in response to his calling Tootsie flawless, the subjects of the film are cheesy soap operas and hammy actors, and these are not terribly important or worthwhile subjects for ridicule. They're already ridiculous.

But this is a roundabout way of getting to my point, and that is Dustin Hoffman's tremendous comic timing and ability. It's easy to forget how funny Hoffman can be in the right role, particularly after several years of performing in dour, pointless crap like Outbreak, Mad City and the awful, atrocious Moonlight Mile. But in 2004, he was given not one but two prime opportunities to delight audiences with laughter, and he knocked both characters completely out of the park.

Film #1 was David O. Russell's charming, twisted I Heart Huckabees. And, much to my surprise, Film #2 is the wholly successful Meet the Fockers, which significantly improves upon the first film's dynamic by adding Hoffman and Barbra Streisand to the cast.



Just in case you're wondering: no, I'm not gay and yes, this review is going to gush about the greatness of Barbra Streisand. Now, I've never been her biggest fan, although I'll admit that she can do flighty, plucky and funny as well as just about any other actress of her generation. The problem is, she takes herself entirely too seriously and usually makes utter tripe. (The Mirror Has Two Faces, I'm looking in your direction).

But here, she's given a terrific, funny role and she's consistantly a treat to watch. Streisand and Hoffman so completely outclass the rest of the cast of Meet the Fockers, I found myself shuffling about in my seat whenever they weren't on screen. Fortunately, director Jay Roach keeps them front and center for most of the film's running time.

What little story there is follows the first film's dynamic pretty closely. Gaylord (Ben Stiller) and his fiancee Pam (Teri Polo, in a dull dull dull thankless role) are meeting up with Pam's parents (De Niro and Blythe Danner) and her infant nephew en route to Miami. See, once they're all in Coconut Grove, they'll get a chance to spend a getting-to-know-you weekend with Gaylord's Mom and Dad, Bernard and Roz Focker (Hoffman and Streisand).

And that's all there is. Uptight, nebbish, taskmaster Jack Byrnes clashes with free-spirited, ex-hippie Bernard while warm sex therapist Roz teaches Dina Byrnes to spice up her sex life. Plus, a dog humps some things, toilet water gets everywhere and several people take a stun gun in the chest.

After two films, the physical comedy schtick in this franchise has begun to wear out its welcome. Except for one very well-planned gag involving a brick, an RV and a windshield, most of the slapstick, which was the best part of the first movie (save Owen Wilson's cameo), just doesn't work here. A late sequence in which Gaylord and Father are pulled over and harrassed by law enforcement goes on far too long without ever really taking off, and a few different takes of Stiller or Hoffman falling over a table fail to get the big laughs that were clearly intended.

And thankfully, the delightful Blythe Danner has more of a role this time around. She's a great actress that works so rarely, who was utterly wasted in the first movie. In a 2 hour comedy with so much padding that could be removed, it's surprising to me that Danner and Teri Polo aren't given even more to do. Why waste two attractive, talented actresses by giving them nothing roles? Surely if writers John Hamburg and James Herzfeld could write such a plum part for Barbra, they could come up with something for Teri Polo to do.

Thankfully as well, this sequel is far less dependant on cheap physical comedy than its predecessor, investing more time on exploring character relationships and mining more flavored, nuanced human comedy. There isn't a lot of nuance in Roz Focker pummelling Jack's back in an effort to relieve his muscle pain, but the interplay between the four parents is a good deal more sophisticated than anything in the first movie.

In fact, it's in the shifting family dynamics that Meet the Fockers actually becomes a bit interesting as social commentary (but just a bit!) The first film made Ben Stiller's Gaylord the focus of most of the humor. We laugh because we predict Jack's outraged reaction to Stiller's juvenile or dishonest or just plain klutzy shenanigans. This time around, it's De Niro's uptight, repressed curmudgeon that's held up as the subject for comedy.

The Fockers themselves are an unconventional duo. They're extremely sexually open (as you'd expect, I suppose, from an open-minded sex therapist and her stay-at-home husband), frank, free-thinking, and very outspoken about their liberal, neo-hippie beliefs. A running joke concerns the different methods of parenting preached by the conservative Jack, who ignores a crying baby to teach self-reliance, and the goofy Bernard, who only wants to hug everybody all the time. And the film even gets somewhat political at times, with Bernard mocking the surveillance technology of the CIA and refusing to participate in "macho" activities like football or hunting.

I found this outlook extremely refreshing, particularly considering the cultural climate in America in early 2005. That the most popular comedy in the country would preach understanding over intolerance, common humanity over competition, frank sexuality over repression and compassion over tradition really says something positive. And if you're sneering right now and thinking to yourself that all movies preach these values, you don't see enough movies. Why, just before the film, I saw a preview for Beauty Shop, a film teaching us that black and white people are fundamentally different, and that any attempt between the two races to intermingle will produce hilarious, wacky results.

So, yeah, Fockers has some serious problems. It's too long, many many jokes don't work, and I still can't shake the feeling that Roach plays things too safe. It's odd that a film so obsessed with sex simply must come out with a PG-13 rating. This is clearly an adult comedy, appealing to older people. I know Ben Stiller's a hit with the kids, but thematically, these movies aren't all-ages appropriate anyway. Why can't I see a real, honest sex comedy from Hollywood any more?