Ed's Review Dot Com

Big Beach Films, Cooper’s Town Productions, Labyrinth Theater Company

Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Ortiz, Richard Petrocelli, Thomas McCarthy, Amy Ryan, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Lola Glaudini

Jack, (Hoffman) is a limo driver. He has a couple for best friends and they set him up on a blind date. He meets Connie (Amy Ryan) and sparks fly. But everyone in this story is messed up. Jack is very meticulous about every detail. He wants to do exactly right and will work and work and study to do it exactly right. As his relationship blossoms with the shy and inexperienced Connie, his friends relationship is falling apart.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays some really WEIRD characters. For example, his character Wilson Joel in Love Lisa who huffs gasoline to get high and spends his life driving around flying model airplanes all over the place is a strange one. This guy is really strange too, but I must say perhaps he’s not the strangest person in this story! Anyway, Jack Goes Boating brings the character from the play to the big screen. As such, it’s a dreary little film where the sets and the scenery is not much of the story. Everything is wrapped up in the characters and these characters are well played and well developed. Jack’s best friend Clyde is very close. A little too close sometimes. He constantly tells Jack “I love you” throughout the story. But it seems a genuine caring for a friend and nothing more. Clyde and Lucy are a couple, but as time goes by their relationship is coming apart. They are abusing substances and not letting go of past mistakes. Meanwhile Jack and Connie are hitting it off. Jack hears from Connie that no one has ever cooked for her. Typical of his nature, he goes way overboard. He lives in a room with a hot plate, and never cooked in his life but spends hours and hours taking cooking lessons and practicing the one meal he just has to cook for her because she asked for it. He’s very into details like this! This is an interesting character study, but it didn’t totally catch me on an entertainment level. If I let this go a while, I may come back and raise the rating on it, because it might be actually better than I originally thought of it. But as I thought about this, it seems that only if you’re in the mood for a deep, dark character study, you might enjoy this, but if you want an entertaining movie to spend and evening with, this is not it. Sometimes character studies are really interesting, but these people are all so weird, that I wonder whether I’m wasting my time even caring what happens to them. I’m just not convinced that this was that good of a film and I don’t think I would recommend it, unless of course, you like these kinds of films. Nice try, but it just wasn’t interesting enough to make the time worthwhile.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

DW Films, DW Studios, Everyman Pictures

Robert DeNiro, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Dustin Hoffman, Ericka Jensen, Barbara Streisand, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, Jessica Alba, Laura Dern, Kevin Hart, Daisy Tahan, Colin Baiocchi, Thomas McCarthy, Harvey Keitel

Greg (Ben Stiller) and Pam (Teri Polo) are ready to celebrate the twins 5th birthday.  They want the whole family to gather for the event.  Greg and Pam are planning a move to a new home, and the plan is to hold the party with a bounce house and all in the back yard of the new house.  But contractor Randy (Harvey Keitel) is dragging his feet and everything else he can drag.  Plus Dad Focker (Dustin Hoffman) is in Spain on some kind of mid life crisis learning how to dance the Salsa.  Meanwhile, Teri’s father, Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro) who was also a fan of Doctor Bob (Thomas McCarthy) since he was so much better than Greg, but Dr. Bob has cheated on Teri’s sister and now is divorced leaving Greg in line to manage the family.  Meanwhile, Greg and Teri are trying to get the twins into a very expensive private school called “The Early Human School” run by Prudence (Laura Dern).  The only thing that could mess things up worse is if Kevin (Owen Wilson) (who just loves Teri, his ex) would show up, and of course he does.  The final straw is a sexy drug rep name Andi Garcia played by Jessica Alba who seems intent on seducing Greg.

Little Fockers is the third in the series.  It’s much better than the last one (Meet the Fockers), but not near as good as the first (Meet the Parents).  That first entry falls into the category of one of the funniest movies of all times!  The characters were really well developed and played off each other wonderfully. With characters so well developed, the only thing that could really go wrong is if they have nothing to do.  I think that’s what happened here.  After the third movie with the “circle of trust” and Jack misinterpreting what Greg is doing, and Greg’s parents being over sexed and crude, and so on, it’s the same recycled jokes.  That is the problem with this film.  It’s like a comedy series that has already run it’s course and run out of new jokes.  Most everything here has been used before.  But still it’s very funny, as always, and these are the same characters we know from before.  It’s like going home again in a way.  Owen Wilson has a slightly longer part this time around, and we get to know him a little better.  Jessica Alba is a good add, as we haven’t seen Greg tempted before.  Greg is supposed to be the one to carry on the Byrnes family crest as “the Godfocker”, and immediately he gets stressed and starts losing it and proving he’s not worthy.   It’s comfortable around this time, and I think a good deal better than the last go round.  If you don’t want to see it in the theater, watch it on DVD when it comes out. It should make the move to small screen very well.   Oh, and one last thing.  Take note of the PG-13 rating very carefully.  Though nothing is shown, there are quite a few crude and rude jokes and gags that, although not shown, may be tough to explain to a small kid.  I was unhappy to see a lot of 8-10 year olds in the theater which made me very uncomfortable for them.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog