Gaylord Focker VS Jack Byrnes! (Meet the Parents (DVD))

Member Name: Great_reviewer07

Product:	Meet the Parents (DVD)
Date:	25/05/09 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent acting from Stiller & De Niro, very funny film

Disadvantages: Some characters were underused

Greg Focker, real name Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller) is a male nurse much to the amusement of all his friends and colleagues. He's been with Pam (Teri Polo) for 10 months now and he knows that she's 'the one'. After work one afternoon he arranges to propose to Pam by getting the young children she teaches to spell out 'Marry me Pam' with pieces of cards, however it doesn't exactly go according to plan. Pam is momentarily distracted by the news that her sister has just got engaged and she happens to mention that her sister's fiancé is in her Dad's good books as he asked his permission before proposing.

When Greg and Pam travel to meet her parents Greg is hoping everything will go smoothly, he plans to ask Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) for Pam's hand in marriage and they'll live happily ever after. To Greg, Jack works with flowers although this is just a clever cover story to cover up the fact that Jack has worked in the C.I.A for 35 years of his life. This of course unnerves Greg when he finds out and to make things worse Jack is extremely protective of his first born and when Greg accidentally gives Jack the impression that he's a pot head things go downhill from there...

Although being released in 2000 I didn't actually see this film until about a year ago when I watched it at a relatives house at Christmas (cheesy I know!) I'd heard great things about it and with such a great cast I was hoping it would be really good. I've loved Ben Stiller ever since I first saw him in There's Something About Mary so I had high hopes for this film.

With such a stellar cast I was expecting the acting to be brilliant and I wasn't disappointed. Despite Ben Stiller playing the main character it was Robert De Niro who really stood out for me, I'm not too familiar with his work, infact the only film of his that comes to mind is Cape Fear which I thought was absolutely fantastic. The change from the character he played in Cape Fear to the character of Jack Byrnes was huge but he seemed to simply take it in his stride and he played the part of the controlling ex C.I.A Agent Jack brilliantly. A lot of the humour comes from him and how he analyses poor Greg at every opportunity, the ways in that he tries to make Greg crack are very outrageous and of course very comical and you really feel sorry for poor old Greg because he has nothing but good intentions towards Pam. I think Jack is my favourite character, I love how they've analysed lots of Father/ Daughter relationships and over exaggerated how protective a Father can be over his daughter. This is very relatable for a lot of people as my Dad is very protective of me, being his only daughter. Of course my Dad is nowhere near as bas as Jack but I can really sympathise with Pam as it's mentioned in the film that he's been exactly the same with all of Pam's ex-boyfriends.

One character that I thought was fantastic but extremely underused was the character of Dina Byrnes (Blythe Danner), Jack's wife. I think out of everyone she's the one you feel sorry for the most as she has to put up with Jack's manipulative and cunning ways yet still remains upbeat about everything. I think that she could have been used a lot more in the film as I really wanted to see more of her. Fortunately she featured in the sequel Meet The Fockers a lot more heavily which was nice to see. Another character that I would have liked to have seen more of was Owen Wilson as Pam's ex fiancé Kevin. I'm a big fan of Owen Wilson, I think he's effortlessly funny and his performance in this is no different. He doesn't even have many lines in the film yet he manages to make his character likeable when you'd think that Greg's main love rival would be a horrible character and he makes the character very funny.

One thing I really noticed was how a comedy about family was so inventive, I was expecting it to be good but not as good as it was. The ways that Greg got himself into trouble with the would-be in laws was brilliant. Then there was of course Jinx, Jack's beloved cat who is treated like a human. Jack taught him to use the toilet and he even has a part in the wedding as the ring bearer! Jinx, although merely a cat actually plays one of the crucial roles in the film as the premise of what's going to unravel in the film is (very funnily) all down to Jinx!

This is a fantastic comedy film and after seeing it at Christmas a year or two ago it's become one of my favourites and I've since purchased it on DVD. It's a film that I'd highly recommend to anyone, it's a brilliant film that all the family can sit down and enjoy. It's extremely relatable for many people and to put it simply... it's hilarious and you must watch it if you haven't already!

The special edition DVD is currently available from play.com for £2.99 which is a brilliant price for such a fantastic film that will have you in stitches on numerous occasions.

The special features include:
Outtakes
'De Niro Unplugged': a deleted scene of Robert De Niro singing 'Love Is In The Air' at the wedding
'Preparing To Meet The Fockers': the cast reveals the inside story of Greg and Pam's disaster-prone romance and the hilarious events leading up to the even more outrageous sequel!
'The Truth About Lying': a polygraph expert from the NBC series 'Meet My Folks' reveals the eye-opening truth about detecting deception
'Silly Cat Tricks' the film's animal wrangler reveals how she trained Jinx the cat for his on-screen antics and shows viewers how to teach their own felines some wild and crazy tricks

The special features are well worth a watch!

Summary: A brilliant family comedy