Meet the Fockers

The 2000 comedy hit Meet the Parents is actually based on a 1992 low-budget feature, also called Meet the Parents, and written by Greg Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke. The material was reworked by John Hamburg and James Herzfeld, who went on to write the sequel, Meet the Fockers, all by themselves. Apparently, not having someone else’s plot and jokes in front of them is not the best way for John and James to work, as Meet the Fockers is one of the least-funny films since Triumph of the Will. Riddled with jokes whose punchlines can be seen coming from as far away as the Orion Nebula and a story so hackneyed that it originally aired as a Sumerian cuneiform sitcom, Meet the Fockers is every bit as juvenile and pointless as its title would suggest. Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Teri Polo do their best to swim upstream against the tide of crap that director Jay Roach has unleashed upon them, but it’s all to no avail. When a movie starts with a shot of gloved fingers dripping with effluvia and includes jokes about people named Randy Focker, Dom Focker and Orny Focker, you can be sure that your entertainment dollar is being used to feed a terrible cocaine habit. Best to spend it on something less objectionable, like abortions or missile-defense systems.