Meet the Parents

The first half of this film starring Robert De Niro, Blythe Danner and Ben Stiller is quite good… those awkward silences when Stiller (whose character bears the unlikely name of Gaylord Focker) first meets his girlfriend’s parents are dead accurate and thus hilarious. But director Jay Roach can’t resist going for Something About Mary-style exaggerations, and one grows a bit weary of the Rube Goldbergesque catastrophes and too-convenient revelations that follow.