Extraordinarily funny!!

Rating: 9/10 (30 April 2010)

"Meet the Parents" is undoubtedly one of the funniest movies ever made. Someone once said that "only the truth is funny", and that certainly applies here. Every young man who is going to meet his girlfriend's parents for the first time is filled with trepidation, and has the feeling that he is about to be subjected to an Inquisition. This film takes that impression one step further, making literal what is ordinarily only figurative. In this case, the hapless suitor (Greg Focker, played by Ben Stiller) is to be probed and dissected by an ex-CIA man, who has years of experience and all the tools of the trade at his disposal, including contacts at the Agency. To say that Jack Byrnes (Robert de Niro) is an overprotective father is like saying that Krakatoa was an explosion. Unlike her husband, Dina Byrnes is generally supportive of Greg and sympathetic to his plight, but Jack is calling the shots. Greg strives gamely to win them over, but everything he does backfires, or at least fizzles.
I have only one minor criticism. The lie detector idea was brilliant, but it could have been used to better effect. After the earlier scene when Greg is questioned about his feelings toward cats, the polygraph gave Jack the perfect opportunity to find out the truth, but he doesn't ask Greg about it.
There was an earlier, much shorter version of "Meet the Parents" that came out in 1992. It had basically an unknown cast, and very few people saw it. The lie detector bit from the 2000 film was the inspiration for a television reality show called "Meet My Folks", which ran on NBC for all of one full season. In contrast to the film, it was not primarily funny, although many viewers found it so.