Starring: Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks
Director: Andrew Fleming
Rated: PG
IN the cinema, 2003 has to be the year of the remake or the sequel.
The In-Laws is a reworking of the 1979 film of the same name starring Peter Falk.
Melissa Peyser (Lindsay Sloane) is engaged to be married to Mark Tobias (Mark Reynolds). Though they come from very different backgrounds, they are the perfect couple. Melissa’s father Jerry (Albert Brooks) is a foot doctor. It’s not clear what Mark’s father Steve does for a living, just that he travels the world and has a stressful career.
When the families meet for the first time at Steve’s favourite Chinese restaurant, an attempt is made on Steve’s life. Because Jerry is a witness to this he becomes an unwilling and unhappy accomplice to Steve as he battles international drug barons and arms dealers in the days that follow. The question is for whom does Steve work?
You would be right to conclude that The In-Laws is a generic Hollywood comedy. It has all the elements ‘ a fraught build up to an unlikely wedding; the complex father/son and doting father/daughter relationships; great locations and two big stars.
Albert Brooks is the straight man to Michael Douglas’s international man of mystery clown.
Director Andrew Fleming moves the action along at a good pace, but the material is so well worn that there are few laughs to be had. The set-ups are absurd, the dialogue is predictable and the movie runs out of puff less than half way through.
The only interesting element in the script is that for a film made last year the now keenly felt anti-French sentiment plays to the prejudices of the gallery.
The only surprise about The In-Laws is how the equally socially inept Jerry and Steve could have such well balanced children.
Miracles happen.
