A “Focking” Good Time

By Todd A. Smith

  ½

            When I told some of my friends I was attending a pre-screening of the Little Fockers movie, many automatically dismissed it because sometimes the third film in a trilogy usually never measures up to the first two.

            Despite that assumption, the Little Fockers movie is hilarious, close to exceptional and the must-see movie of the Christmas season.

            The movie takes place several years after Meet the Fockers ends, and Greg (Ben Stiller) and Pam (Teri Polo) are now the married parents of two 5-year-old twins Henry (Colin Baiochhi) and Samantha (Daisy Tahan).  Henry amusingly is all Focker while Samantha is brutally relentless like her maternal grandfather played by Robert Deniro.

            Roz Focker (Barbara Streisand) has been given her own sex therapy talk show and her husband Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) is away in Spain trying to overcome “mano-pause,” as Roz describes his mid-life crisis.

            Also comedian Kevin Hart makes a brief but amusing appearance as one of few in Greg’s club of male nurses.

In addition to the rigors of work, and keeping their marriage spicy despite their child-rearing duties, Greg still has to deal with the constant surveillance of  his father-in-law Jack Byrnes (Deniro).

            To make matters worse Kevin (Owen Wilson) is obviously still in love with his ex-girlfriend Pam and Greg is being pursued by his sexy co-worker Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba) after he takes on a job as a male-enhancement pill (Sustengo) spokesperson.  Luckily Alba’s Andi Garcia is much more attractive than the star of The Godfather Part III, but that definitely does not help Greg convince Jack that he is being faithful to Pam.

            While the plot of Greg being constantly harassed by Jack could have easily become stale and boring, the presence of the children and Alba add fresh material to the Little Fockers movie.  In one scene, Henry actually asks Greg if girls can “poop through their vagina.”

            Henry steals the show during the twins’ interview for a prestigious school called the Early Humans School, especially the soon-to-be classic “eye exam” scene.  As Jack would have imagined, his sweetheart and fellow “spy” Sam aces her interview while her brother seems to “fock” it up like his old man would have.

            Despite living in Chicago, away from any influences by the elder Fockers and the Byrnes family, the entire extended clan comes to the Windy City for the twins’ birthday party, which becomes more like a festival at an amusement park after Kevin is allowed to host the shindig.

            Jack is determined to prove that Greg is not the right man for his daughter and before the end of the party; they begin acting like they are “little Fockers” and not grown, mature men leading their families.

            The Little Fockers movie is rated PG-13 and an enjoyable movie for the entire family despite several scenes that may be a little too provocative for very younger viewers.  Nevertheless, the Stiller-Deniro tandem is still a winner and the Little Fockers movie is definitely worth paying the money for admission.

            The only negative drawback from the film is that the filmmakers left some questions unanswered such as whether or not the twins were admitted to the Early Humans School.

            However, we can possibly look forward to a fourth installment to answer those lingering questions about the Focker family, as the elder Fockers and Byrnes families make life-changing decisions that will surely continue to make Greg’s life total chaos for some time to come.

REGAL RATINGS

FOUR CROWNS=EXCELLENT

THREE CROWNS=GOOD

TWO CROWNS=AVERAGE

ONE CROWN=POOR

Smith is publisher of Regal Black Men's Magazine.