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Interesting that Hollywood would remake such an unassuming
movie. The original The In-Laws was a 1979 caper flick
starring Peter Falk and Alan Arkin that barely
even registered on the national consciousness, not even bringing
in twenty million in its entire run. But someone somewhere
somehow talked Warner Bros. studio heads into financing this
remake, which places Michael Douglas in the Peter Falk
role and Albert Brooks in the Alan Arkin one. Now,
Brooks and Arkin, one can see how that fits in a very strange
way. But Douglas and Falk? Gordon Gekko taking on a role once
played by Columbo? It doesn’t seem right.
Until you watch the film. Douglas hasn’t let loose like this
in a film since the mid-eighties, when he and Kathleen
Turner found themselves running from savages and businessmen
(six in one hand, half-dozen in the other) in Romancing
The Stone and Jewel Of The Nile, and watching him
finally lose his trademark scowl and is-he-or-isn’t-he evil
demeanor adds to the fun in a film that is nothing but.
The In-Laws is probably the first worthwhile distraction
film of the year. You don’t have to invest much in it. Just
sit back and enjoy the interplay between Douglas and Brooks,
as the yin and yang fathers of a young engaged couple (Reynolds
and Sloane, barely registering as characters but
pleasant enough in the scenes they share). Douglas is the
groom’s father, an international smuggler (Or is he?) who
loves his kid almost as much as he loves the job (Yeah, there’s
some sappy self-realization late in the film, but what can
you expect?). Brooks plays the bride’s father, a foot doctor,
decidedly Jewish (this is Albert Brooks, after all),
who prefers his safe life to anything remotely resembling
exciting.
So, yes, this is an odd-couple film, and within that context,
the back-and-forth antics between Brooks and Douglas play
to the audience’s expectations extremely well. Douglas’s character
brings out the daredevil in Brooks, and Brooks brings out
the softer side of Douglas. Everything goes exactly like the
formula dictates, and it’s surprisingly entertaining.
What isn’t so entertaining is the vein of homophobia running
below the film’s surface. Obviously, Hollywood has used gay
characters as comic relief for years, so this is really nothing
new. The problem in The In-Laws, though, is that the
filmmakers try to mask the way they’re using the gay character,
who has his eye on Brooks. The filmmakers seem to be trying
to convince the audience that the comedy coming from the situation
stems from how Brooks, the neurotic, uptight, Jewish father
figure, responds to the advances of the gay character. But
it doesn’t take much to see that this isn’t the case at all—what
we’re supposed to be laughing at are the man’s effete mannerisms,
his insistence on getting Brooks into a thong (And that isn’t
a pretty image. Just a warning). We are expected to laugh
at the very fact that he is an international smuggler who
is gay. It’s offensive, and it detracts from a film that,
while not spectacular, is something special: a hackneyed story
that still works.
—Cole Sowell
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out of 5
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