Meet the Parents

Details

Male nurse Greg Focker is madly in love with his girlfriend Pam and plans an elaborate proposal involving the children in her school class. Unfortunately, moments before he can put his plan into action Pam's mobile phone rings and her sister Debbie steals Greg's thunder by announcing that she's engaged. Greg also discovers that Debbie's fiancé had sought the approval of her father before proposing, so he decides to do the same when he and Pam visit the Byrnes family home for the forthcoming wedding.

Unfortunately, things get off to a bad start when Greg's luggage goes AWOL at the airport, taking the engagement ring with it. Matters aren't improved when he meets Pam's father Jack, a retired horticulturist who takes an immediate interest in Greg's intentions towards his daughter. Greg desperately wants to make a good impression, but Jack's intimidating manner and rather unusual approach to questioning potential sons-in-law make him increasingly nervous.

It doesn't take long before Greg discovers that there's considerably more to Jack than growing flowers. His prospective father-in-law has an impressive surveillance system, a suspicious interest in Greg's every move and even owns his own lie detector. Unfortunately, Greg's attempts to make himself appear more impressive only result in increasingly elaborate lies which have an unfortunate habit of coming back to haunt him.

From there, virtually everything Greg says, does or touches results in disaster. Even the family's beloved cat Mr. Jinx becomes involved as Greg gradually turns into a one-man wrecking crew, destroying any chance he might have had of gaining Jack's approval. To make matters worse, Pam's impossibly successful former fiancé Kevin is still hanging around and seems to possess all the qualities Jack wishes Greg had.

Picture & Sound

The picture is bright and colourful, if occasionally a little washed out, and maintains an above-average bit-rate throughout the film. The result is a clean and detailed image with no obvious signs of artifacting. Given the relatively new source material there are also no significant scratches or other print imperfections to distract from the presentation.

By providing both Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks, the DVD gives you the opportunity to judge for yourself which format you prefer. Unfortunately, this isn't really the best film on which to make that judgement as there's simply too little happening in the surround channels to demonstrate much difference between them.

Both formats nevertheless come across extremely well, with dialogue remaining crisp and clearly audible in the centre channel throughout. Music and occasional ambient effects provide some activity elsewhere in the soundstage, but this is understandably a fairly restrained mix. Still, I'm sure the "are you sure you're not thick?" message displayed when selecting the DTS soundtrack has gone on long enough - thank you, but we really don't need it any more!

Menu & Extras

The extras are excellent and include one of my favourite DVD additions - outtakes. Unfortunately, they become rather less entertaining after about the fifth clip of Robert De Niro laughing and fluffing the same scene, but there's still enough amusing material to make them worth watching.

There are also two audio commentaries. Director Jay Roach and editor Jon Poll provide one track, whilst the second brings together Roach, producer Jane Rosenthal, Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. Stiller provides plenty of comments but De Niro remains surprisingly quiet and generally seems to require prompting before joining in. Given how little he contributes at times, you have to wonder why he bothered turning up.

The deleted scenes include optional commentary and there are plenty of smaller additions to explore, including the Spotlight on Location featurette, lie detector test, Forecaster game, production notes, biographies and DVD-ROM material. There's even one hidden gem tucked away in the Universal Showcase section - a trailer for the forthcoming The Mummy 2. The extras may vary considerably in substance, but there's certainly no shortage of them.

Overall

Similar to his appearance in Analyze This, Robert De Niro is funny without even appearing to try. Jack Byrnes is played almost completely straight, which makes him considerably funnier than if De Niro had attempted to turn the character into an obvious comedy performance. A suspicious glance or carefully delivered question is usually enough to reduce Greg to a nervous wreck and you can almost see the poor man's brain desperately searching for the next lie that's going to get him into even more trouble.

Ben Stiller is equally good as Greg. This is exactly the sort of role he excels at - a basically decent bloke who desperately wants everybody to like him but somehow manages to make every situation considerably worse. The more he tries to impress Jack, the more spectacularly things go wrong, until you're almost willing him to simply shut up before he causes another disaster.

The chemistry between Stiller and De Niro is what really makes the film work. Jack barely needs to raise his voice to be intimidating, whilst Greg becomes increasingly desperate to prove that he's good enough for Pam. Throw Owen Wilson's irritatingly perfect Kevin into the equation and Greg's weekend rapidly develops into the sort of nightmare visit to the future in-laws that should probably be shown to anybody considering marriage as a warning.

There are plenty of wonderfully uncomfortable moments along the way, from Jack's lie detector and the disastrous dinner-table conversation to Greg's increasingly unfortunate relationship with Mr. Jinx. The humour frequently comes from knowing exactly what Greg should do and then watching helplessly as he does precisely the opposite.

My favourite line from the film must still be when Jack sits up in bed, turns to his wife and says "Do you realise that Pam's middle name is Martha?" It probably doesn't sound remotely funny written down, but in context De Niro's delivery had me laughing so much that I'll leave that one for you to discover for yourself.

Unlike some of the more outrageous comedies doing the rounds at the moment, Meet the Parents doesn't need to rely constantly on gross-out humour to generate laughs. Much of the comedy comes simply from embarrassment, misunderstandings and Greg's increasingly desperate attempts to escape from the situations he's created for himself. It means the film has a rather broader appeal whilst still containing enough outrageous moments to keep things lively.

With Ben Stiller on top form, Robert De Niro proving that he can be hilarious without sacrificing any of his intimidating screen presence and a tremendous collection of extras, there's very little to complain about here. The addition of both Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks makes an already impressive DVD package even better. An extremely funny film and a real must-buy - so go buy it!

Special features

• Spotlight on Location
• Feature Commentary with Director Jay Roach and Editor Jon Poll
• Feature Commentary with Cast Members Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Director Jay Roach and Producer Jane Rosenthal
• Deleted Scenes with Commentary
• Outtakes
• Lie Detector Test
• Forecaster Game
• Production Notes
• Cast and Filmmakers Biographies and Film Highlights
• Theatrical Trailer
• Universal Showcase
• DVD-ROM Enhanced