Dustin Hoffman Exceeds Even Barbara Streisand

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2005)

I still have unpleasant memories from the 60's / 70's of sitting miserably through Streisand movies such as "Owl and PussyCat" "Funny Lady" "Hello Dolly" etc. (not by choice, my girlfriend dragged me in). I thought Babs was the most tiresome, irritating moron in the entire entertainment universe; don't even get me started on her singing (mercifully, at that time I hadn't yet heard of Bette Midler or Joan Rivers). But in "Meet the Fockers" Dustin Hoffman has actually achieved the impossible - he is even more irritating than Barbara Streisand! I think I could have endured the ordeal better without dialog; if only I could have plugged in headphones and drowned out the film soundtrack with the soothing sound of fingernails scraping on a chalkboard. Alas I had to listen to Hoffman being an obnoxious jerk, it seemed like every time he opened his mouth he had another brain-fart. Humor is at its best when it is subtle enough to imitate life; nobody in real life would behave like Hoffman's character and live to reach the age of 50, some irate relative would have bashed in his skull with a piece of 2 x 4.