This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Boyfriend intro goes off the rails
Plot Overview
Jack Byrnes
(Robert De Niro) spent nineteen months in a Vietnamese POW camp then was a CIA operative having
somehow avoided their dope runs. He was strengthened by his
Christian mother (“You gave me courage”) along the
lines of author Frederick Forsyth:
“You're going away again, aren't you son?”He knew what she meant by “away.” She had known about Vietnam before he got word he was shipping out and used to call him in Washington before the foreign journeys as if she sensed something she could not possibly know. Something about mothers … three thousand miles and she could sense the danger. (246)
The mama's
boy formed a strong bond with his wife Dina (Blythe Danner) and
then with his two daughters. His cover job was as a benign florist
but now he's retired from both. He's not from his camp days lost
his suspicions of gooky “care givers” or his CIA technical skills,
so he's operating a sideline marketing a Nanny Cam that can be
hidden in a teddy bear or whatnot.
He doesn't warm up to the
veritable catch Kevin Rawley (Owen Wilson) of his firstborn
Pam (Teri Polo) until she broke it off after a one month engagement
(“It was just a stupid sexual thing.”) Her younger
sister Debbie (Nicole DeHuff) was smarter and had her beau Bob
Banks (Thomas McCarthy) ask her dad for her hand first.
Pam's serious boyfriend Gaylord “Greg” Focker
(Ben Stiller) has gotten the clue and has gone to his girl's dad to
ask his permission straight off the bat.
Problem is
Greg's a caregiving male nurse, and an
“uncoordinated” one at that.
He hurts his patients (“No!”), bruises a guest, loses
his luggage, mangles saying grace, breaks the furnishings, ignites
a brush fire, overflows the toilet, circumcises a pet,
and gifts a white elephant. He's a walking disaster. In his zeal to
please the dad, he resorts to lying about everything, not
realizing the guy's a “human lie detector” from his
CIA days.
This does not bode well.
Ideology
The two firm rules in this man's house are
unmarrieds sleep in separate rooms and, “Jinx is a house cat;
can't let him outside.” The first corresponds to the
many admonitions in the Bible not to fornicate, one has to wait
until married to have sex, i.e.
(1Cor. 7:2) “to avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman
have her own husband.” The second applies in the breach when
an outside cat brought inside trashes the place, comparable
wrt church order when
Paul commands (2Cor. 6:14)
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers:
...” One doesn't want to yoke an outside cat to an inside
place or vice versa. Temple prostitutes brought into the church
would tend to increase fornication, but marriage even to an
unbeliever would reduce it. Greg is Jewish trying to join himself
to a Christian family, which on its face is not prohibited.
Rather, Paul says, (1Cor. 7:13, 16) “the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. … For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?” We would do well to note historian J.M. Roberts's assessment, “For all the achievements of Paul and his colleagues, this [spread of Christianity] probably owed less to deliberate evangelization than to contagion and osmosis within the Jewish communities of the empire” (63). Though Greg was Jewish they had him say grace that if pressed could pass as Christian. It's a first step.
Paul doesn't forbid mixed marriage, but he allows an out: (1Cor. 7:15) “if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.” This is expressed in the movie when Greg declares, “I love your daughter, Jack. … But frankly sir, I'm a little terrified of being your son-in-law. This whole weekend has given me a lot of doubts about whether or not I could even survive in your family.” Perhaps they'll reach an accommodation, and perhaps not. Not every Jew is up to marrying a Christian, but the apostle doesn't forbid it, not the way he forbids mixed congregations.
Production Values
“” (2000) was directed by Jay Roach. Its excellent screenplay was written by Greg Glienna, Mary Ruth Clarke and Jim Herzfeld. Some of their jokes, I never saw coming. It stars Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro and Teri Polo. Polo deserves much credit for portraying a girl so utterly in love that she prefers her heartthrob over an objectively better catch. The rest of the actors held their own, and the cat was so good it was unreal.
MPA rated it PG–13 for sexual content, drug references and language. The humor was pretty tame by today's standards and the plot engaging. Runtime is 1 hour 48 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
It had a good message of putting off sex until marriage. It had devotion to one's mother & Christian values, with no antisemitism. It's good for laughs.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for intergenerational Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Forsyth, Frederick. Icon. Copyright © 1996 by Bantam Books. New York: Bantam Books, 1996. Print.
Roberts, J.M. A History of Europe. New York: Penguin Press, 1997. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org