Meet the Fockers

A follow-up, of course, to the funny and popular “Meet the Parents.” Here, Gaylord and Pam (Ben Stiller and Teri Polo) must endure the long-delayed meeting between their parents. Gaylord's parents are played by none other than Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, who provide further proof that good comic acting is, first of all, good acting. (DeNiro, reprising his role as Pam's ex-CIA Dad has demonstrated this many times.) The movie shrewdly retains the elements that made the first film successful (not least Stiller's hapless shtick), and, though it relies a bit too much for my tastes on a funny baby, it is highly entertaining. The surprise in the film is the almost dramatic conflict between DeNiro's tightly wound character and the free spirits played by Hoffman and Streisand. They actually generate some real tension, and the film comes perilously close to drama at times. DeNiro really seems to be a man tormented by his own nature, and Blythe Danner, as his wife, actually gives a moving performance as a woman who loves her husband but is acutely aware of, and longs for, all the things he cannot find it in himself to provide. But don't let all this talk of drama worry you; the film may veer towards drama at times, but it quickly regains its sensibility and gets back to the naughty humor and goofy slapstick which is what we came for in the first place.