After suffering a heart attack, Jack (Robert De Niro) tells his son-in-law (Ben Stiller) that he, Gay Focker, is to become the head of the clan – the so-called Godfocker. Gay takes his father-in-law’s words more than seriously and begins to take care of his family’s welfare with triple the effort. He tries to get his children into an elite school, agrees to moonlight in promoting a new medicine, and even prepares the turkey himself for his wife’s parents’ arrival.
The Focker Family Circus
This third film in the Focker family chronicles surprisingly fits the common definition of “the clowns are still here.” The producers managed to gather all the actors from the previous installments in this sequel and organized a separate performance for each, complete with castanets, glitter, and other carnival paraphernalia. Gay’s mother, played by Barbra Streisand, is back with her show, bringing sex to the masses.
Her husband, played by Dustin Hoffman, is experiencing male menopause and learning flamenco in Spain. Mrs. Focker’s eternal admirer (Owen Wilson) wears pink pants and performs acrobatic stunts. Mrs. Jack Byrnes also experiments with images, while Jack Byrnes himself, a florist and pensioner, cannot shake off his persona as a CIA agent. As for Gay Focker, he is simply tired of it all, because, in the absence of a better arena, all the clowning, senseless and merciless, is once again played out in his living room. And before everyone leaves for home, it seems, a bathroom schedule will have to be drawn up.
Behind the Scenes
“Little Fockers” is actually the third film in the franchise, following “Meet the Parents” and “Meet the Fockers.”
Dustin Hoffman refused to act until the very end: he didn’t like the script and the fact that the director was no longer Jay Roach. In the end, the actor was persuaded to do six scenes. At what cost is unknown.
Of all the film reviews counted by Rotten Tomatoes, only 8% were positive. The average rating was 3.5 out of 10.
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New Faces, Same Shenanigans
However, Paul Weitz, who replaced Jay Roach as director, realized in time that Stiller and De Niro’s antics alone would not sustain the film, and decided to reinforce the old, sluggish guard with new comedians. For example, half of the story revolves around an experimental drug for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Or, in the language of the characters, “boner pills,” which, of course, only the lazy will not try here. Moreover, these miracle pills are pushed by a former nurse played by Jessica Alba and named Andy Garcia. To complete the picture, it can also be added that she meets Gay during a procedure of synchronous enema administration to a large African-American patient… Well, in addition to this, the third series features the Focker children, a lizard, and other small things, whose main comedic function is to get underfoot.
A Dive into the Absurd
However, returning to enemas and erectile dysfunction, in fairness, the franchise stumbled into “cheesiness” back in the second film. However, in the third, it plunged into this swamp headfirst and could no longer find the strength to get out.
But in order not to cast a shadow on the unfortunate De Niro, who, one would like to think, would not agree to stick a sock in his pants without really good reason, we prefer to attribute all the failures to Paul Weitz, who, apparently, was not too coincidentally overcome by reflection on his debut “American Pie.” Which remains, paradoxically, his most successful film.