A bit tedious in areas, but overall good fun

Rating: Null/10 (20 October 2000)

Finally, a Jay Roach film I can tolerate! "Meet The Parents" is a very funny, almost laugh a minute riot. Storyline is pretty basic slapstick stuff, daughter brings boyfriend home to meet the parents, boyfriend finds himself in one bizarre predicament after another.
What makes this idea so good is the good performances delivered by the two main characters Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro). Greg is a well intentioned young man who makes an admirable living as a male nurse. One day he decides to propose to his girlfriend Pam (Teri Polo). While in the midst of the proposal, Pam gets a call from her sister.....she has just gotten engaged and in the course of that call Greg finds out he is "expected" to gain Jack's approval before proposing to Pam. With sister's wedding day just a couple weeks off, they head to the Byrnes' residence to not only be at the blessed event, but to get dad's permission as well.
Ben Stiller performs admirably in the role, handling every single crisis that comes along. Greg is a too close to his "Something About Mary" character than is comfortable, but it works well and Stiller makes the guy likeable.
Robert DeNiro is Jack Byrnes. A CIA operative, Jack is a master at reading human emotion and can make a person nervous by a simple glance. A decent enough character but a bit dry. He loves Pam's cat though, treating him like a son rather than a household pet.
Teri Polo as Pam, Blythe Danner as Dina Byrnes (Pam's mother), Jon Abrahams ("Outside Providence")as Pam's druggy brother Denny are all good characters but don't add much to the story.
Owen Wilson chimes in as Kevin Rawley, Pam's ex-fiance. I have no idea why this character was there. Nicely done by Owen, but the segments involving him are basically throw-away and inserted strictly to allow Greg to have another disaster.
"Meet The Parents" is funny enough to carry what little dead-weight the script has (mainly Greg's disasters reach the point where you wonder what could possibly happen next). If Jay Roach can smooth out the rough edges as mentioned above that have plagued all his movies, the next one could be pretty sharp.
2 1/2 out of 5