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Meet the parents

Film review

Meet the parents
Film starring Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller
Cert: 12

Imagine this. You've met the woman of your dreams. This is 'the one' and you're ready to propose. Just one hurdle stands in the way - to meet the parents and get her dad's permission. That's the situation facing male nurse Greg in this amusing romantic comedy.

The problem is that his prospective father-in-law is a nightmare come true. Robert De Niro plays the untrusting and over-protective father of Pam. He's an ex-spycatcher and he'll stop at nothing to find out the truth about Greg, including forcing him to take a lie detector test, one of several excruciatingly cringeworthy situations Greg finds himself in.
And this seems to be the central premise of the film. Can anyone really be trusted, and how far will you go to gain someone's approval? The web of lies Greg spins is increasingly ridiculous yet still rings true. The ease of fabricating the truth to improve one's image is shown by Greg throughout the film. Yet it doesn't do him any good and only seems to end in disaster, with him making one gigantic faux pas after another (smashing an urn containing the ashes of De Niro's mother and flooding the garden with sewage are just two of many).

So, lying doesn't pay in the end. In the light of which, I've been forced to take my own 'EN lie detector test': 1. Is Meet the Parents a funny film? Yes. 2. Is it well scripted and well acted? Yes. 3. But is it spoilt by crude jokes and bad language? Er, unfortunately, Yes.

Martin Cole