Meet The Fockers

USA, 2004. Directed by Jay Roach. Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, Owen Wilson.

OK, I admit I was drawn to watching this film because of Hoffman and Streisand. I’d seen Meet The Parents and found it only mildly amusing but felt the addition of these two icons playing the ageing hippy parents of Greg (Ben Stiller) might be a big boost to the comedy. In the event, sadly, I was distinctly disappointed. Having won over his fiancée’s parents Jack and Dina (De Niro and Danner), Greg arranges for them to come to Florida to meet his own (the aforementioned Hoffman and Streisand). What follows is largely a reworking of the jokes from the first film, many of them relying on the notion that it’s hilarious that “Focker” sounds like a rude word. This was amusing once – maybe even twice – but the repetition soon palls. The characterisations are good – Roz Focker is a sex therapist who quickly takes it upon herself to work on the Byrnes’s sterile love life while husband Bernie is a lawyer who took paternity leave to raise Greg and never went back to work. Together their let-it-all-hang-out approach to life serves to embarrass Greg and alienate the suspicious Jack. What lets it down, as so often, is the writing. It seems a pity – and a little surprising – that such high-level stars were happy to settle for something so mediocre. Surely it can’t be the money? While it’s agreeable to see De Niro gurning and generally sending himself up there’s a limit to how many times I want to see him do it. And it seems odd that Streisand, who rarely makes films these days, should choose to turn up in this one. Mildly funny, undemanding and OK if you’re in the right mood.