Often funny, though over-the-top

Rating: 7/10 (25 April 2001)

"Meet the Parents" is an over-the-top comedy that begs for laughs like a cinematic vagrant. It attacks you at every corner, begging for some laughs, hoping you can spare some. Luckily, I was generous and was gracious enough to donate a sufficient amount of laughs. This is a boisterous sitcom of a movie that occasionally drives you nuts, but often pleases.

Bobby D has made a fine transition to comedy, and although others feel he's not suited for the genre--being stuck on his Travis Bickle persona--I think he's cut out just fine for films of this kind. You know why? He doesn't GO for laughs. He lets the laughs come to him, and disciplines the material to a reasonable level. Ben Stiller, on the other hand, does the complete opposite. Stiller can be extremely funny in roles in films like "There's Something About Mary," but in lame roles like in "Heavyweights" he can be really obnoxious! And sometimes he tries a bit too hard to get the laughs. So hard that you just want to shoot him with a tranquilizer dart. During lame points of the script, Stiller tries to elevate the material to a good comical status, but instead ends up looking like a complete...idiot. Like he should be locked up in a cage. And it's not funny. It's just obnoxious.
I am going to reccomend this movie, because I can't deny I was laughing 75 percent of the time. And that was my motive for seeing the movie. Of course, that and I'm a big DeNiro fan. However, there are moments where you just want to yell out at the director "Enough already! We get the joke!" The makers of the film just merge way too many jokes into one scene, and it gets pretty lame and/or predictable at times.
My score: 7 (out of 10)