Flirting with Disaster

Why is it that people think grating, annoying, OBNOXIOUS characters are funny ? It's hard to laugh when you just want someone, ANYONE to smack those people up the back of the head as hard as they can. The dialogue goes nowhere, the scenes go nowhere and all in all you feel like you wasted 2 hours of your life watching something that might have worked as a Saturday Night Live skit. Avoid at all costs. I'm the type of person that can always find something redeeming in a film and there is NONE to be found here.

This is one of the best ensemble works I have ever seen. The always satisfying Ben Stiller leads a mission across the country coming into contact with the some of the craziest people ever immortalized on celluloid. Alan Alda, Patricia Arquette (thankfully more lucid here than in recent memory), Lily Tomlin, George Segal, and Mary Tyler Moore join the roller-coaster ride and within it all are many beautiful portraits of life which we learn should probably never intermingle too much. The disaster lies among these rocky run-ins (sorry, i'm too tired to edit out alliteration). If you like movies in which there are no fiery explosions, people being shot or messages in a spielbergian vein, or if you are sick of teen slashers, teen classic lit remakes and John Hughes retreads, rent this movie. You will laugh and bite your nails. Pure viewing satisfaction.

A dark, twisted and funny tale of a man's search for his "real" parents and all that can go wrong. Hippies, FBI, even Bed and Breakfasts get lampooned. Highly recommended for those that enjoy a naughty comedy. If you liked Afterhours or The Opposite of Sex, you should enjoy this!

Did We See The Same Movie? I am stunned that people didn't like this film--I thought everyone loved it! It's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen and only gets better with repeated viewings. A friend of mine called it "the best Woody Allen film Woody never made" but I think it's better than that. It's sharp and biting, but it has a sweetness and affection for it's characters that really charms.

Tight, elegant scripting which has you wound up to laugh the whole way through, and natural, seemingly effortless performances. A zany cast of marvellously original characters takes you across America in search of Ben Stiller's birth parents. Not a dud line or piece of acting throughout, this little-known treasure deserves to be a cult classic.

A great cast, terrific script, and seamless direction all blend together in this very funny tale about a man who yearns to find his birth parents, and whose path to them is rocky to say the least. Mary Tyler Moore is wonderful, but most everyone is in top form, too. There is a strange left-turn into slapstick just before the end, though even this proves to be most entertaining.

I laughed harder at this film than any I have seen for many years. When I showed it to about thirty people 75 years and up about one-third walked out because of the language, but the rest stayed and enjoyed no end. The cast is uniformly good - I cannot pick out anyone for special mention. They're all great. As a born nit-picker, you would expect me to object to having the New Haven Railroad run through Michigan, but I didn't care - I was laughing too hard.

A clever comedy that mixes slapstick, social commentary, satire, and lots of humor together very effectively. It keeps you laughing, chuckling and/or guffawing throughout. Ben Stiller and Tea Leoni have scenes with hilarious sexual tension, and one unexpected scene just knocks me out of my seat everytime I see this! Lots of praise to the ensemble cast, from Patricia Arquette as the long-suffering, too-understanding wife, Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal as the most hilariously dysfunctional married couple ever, Alda Alda and Lily Tomlin as the seemingly normal married couple, and the gem couple of the movie -- the two FBI agents with a secret of their own, and they are extremely funny in their portrayals! I would recommend this to anyone who likes a laugh, or who has ever thought, "Would I have been better off if I had been raised by Such and Such rather than my own inadequate parents?"

I didn't expect big things; I just watched this movie to see another title from Tea Léoni. She performs average good - I still believe that her best film is 'The Family Man' with Nicolas Cage - and others, like Ben Stiller, also do an acceptable interpretation. I expected something better from him, I still have 'There's Something About Mary' in my mind, which was a great fun to watch. Though, here the situations were indeed very funny, however, maybe I was tired or what, I couldn't really laugh at them. I think the entire atmosphere, the conversations, the people, the landscape were typical American, and at least I got an impression of the 'everyday' American lifestyle. The final scene surprised me, as the story didn't really end, just stopped as it started. So, this is just an average Sunday afternoon DVD to me, in fact, it didn't even reach the cinemas in Hungary. 6/10

This comedy of errors from David O. Russell, recently of "Three Kings" fame, was totally overlooked by the vast majority of moviegoers. The stellar cast alone should warrant at least one viewing. The incredible script and comedic situations just go from great to better, even though they seem incredibly uncomfortable to the protagonists. If you watch it for only one thing, stick with it to see the final act of the movie in the house of Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin. Don't wanna give anything away, but it makes great use of music by Jerry Garcia. Truly remarkable, extremely funny, and a great showcase for great actors from today and the not-too-distant past. Trust me.