Μύ Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro make a dynamite double-act in Meet The Parents, a comedy from director Jay Roach. We called it "a five star hoot" and evidently you agreed, making it one of the highest grossing movies of 2000. You couldn't get enough of male nurse Gaylord Focker (snigger) who consistently fails to impress his girlfriend's dad with a string of cringe-worthy faux pas.
As sequel Meet The Fockers looms on the horizon, the folks at DreamWorks afford you yet another chance to Meet The Parents on Special Edition DVD.
You Talkin' To Me?
A six-minute reel of "all new outtakes!" is the big selling point for this DVD and it offers some amusing moments like Owen Wilson corpsing under the beady eye of Robert De Niro. But it turns out that De Niro was the biggest boob on set, constantly cracking up, fluffing his lines and generally distracting his fellow actors. It's all quite endearing given his tough guy image, but the former Taxi Driver pushes his luck with a howling rendition of Love Is In The Air in De Niro Unplugged.
A private investigator reveals the telltale signs of deception in The Truth About Lying, which tenuously links to the famous polygraph scene. Sadly PI Nick Savastano's insights are restricted to the obvious points about perspiration, high blood pressure, and heart rate. If you were hooked up to a polygraph while listening Savastano's droning, you'd have scientific proof that he's as funny as a heart attack.
Silly Cat Tricks is only slightly less redundant, introducing you to animal trainer Dawn Barkan and Jinx the cat who "really doesn't do much". However, pet owners may be interested to know that "you can't train your cat to flush, but you can train it to use the toilet". (Sadly Dawn does not attempt to milk the cat.)
Pussyfooting
Jay Roach: A Director's Profile is, in short, baffling. Rather than offer a biography of the filmmaker, this is a psychedelic montage of Jay Roach in profile. Somebody somewhere might think this is funny and his name is probably Jay Roach. Thankfully his audio commentary is much more lucid and, with the backup of editor Jon Poll, gives a thorough insight into the creative process. For instance, you may be horrified to learn that the dinner scene took 50,000 feet of film to shoot over the course of two days. You'll be less surprised to hear that - like every other director who's worked with De Niro - Roach was "terrified" on his first day of shooting. "It was the most stressful day of my life," he confesses. "I didn't want to be the guy that screwed up a Robert De Niro film."
Roach and Poll also offer commentary for two deleted scenes. The funniest sees De Niro prepare for a trip to the local grocery store with frightening military precision while the other finds Stiller crawling beneath the house in search of Mr Jinx. In both cases, Roach agonised over whether to include them in the final cut, calling the dilemma his "Sophie's Choice".
Disappointingly there are no interviews with the cast, or any behind-the-scenes footage (besides the outtakes), so it's difficult to fathom what makes this Special Edition release so special. However, if you ignore the fluff, Meet The Parents is a worthy addition to your DVD family.
EXTRA FEATURES
