Also this issue:

Pros Poem
Old hands Johnny Hallyday and Jean Rochefort make beautiful music together.
-Sam Adams

Screen Picks
-Sam Adams

New Shorts

Continuing Shorts

Repertory Film

Showtimes

May 22-28, 2003

movies

Family Natters

Taken for a ride: Brooks and Douglas head off to unfunny-remake-land.

A nebbish-out-of-water classic gets hit with the useless remake stick.

by Ryan Godfrey

One of the all-time funny film moments is neurotic dentist Alan Arkin learning absurd bullet-evasion tactics from loopy spy Peter Falk in Arthur Hiller’s 1979 The In-Laws. Since they are under heavy fire at the time, the lesson is necessarily quick: "Serpentine, Shel. Serpentine!" The idea is presumably to move stochastically toward cover to avoid predictability, but Sheldon is new to espionage; his "serpentine" is frenzied, spasmodic meandering, often doubling back and unnecessarily covering the same ground twice. How convenient that I can repurpose that same description to describe Andrew Fleming’s purposeless remake.

There have been a few changes, but the premise remains unchanged: Neurotic podiatrist Jerry Peyser (Albert Brooks) is hosting an elaborate wedding for his daughter, and the family has yet to meet the groom's always-traveling father, Steve Tobias (Michael Douglas). When he finally shows up for a get-to-know-you dinner, it's clear that Tobias is a little too colorful to really be the international copier salesman he claims to be.

In fact, he's a CIA agent, working under deep cover to sell a contraband submarine to a French arms dealer. For no particularly good reason other than the timeless laws of odd-couple adventure comedies, Tobias involves his soon-to-be in-law, Dr. Peyser, in the international smuggling proceedings, racing the clock to get back in time for the nuptials. They run from the bad guys, they run from the oblivious feds. They fly Barbra Streisand's jet (don't ask why, I couldn't tell you) to rendezvous with the arms seller, who takes a shine to the grumpy little doctor, and with whom Peyser has to play hot-tub kissyface. (Not that you need me to tell you this, but straight guys who have to pretend to be gay are hilarious.) From there it's but a few randomly drawn scenes to the big finish, wherein Tobias and Peyser ride a Jet Ski in Lake Michigan, maniacally sounding an air horn while the wedding party waves from shore. Frenzied, spasmodic, unnecessary, anyone?

There's no getting around the fact that Michael Douglas is way too old to be a James Bond type. That he has to stand comparison to Peter Falk's wacky agent makes his job that much more thankless. Albert Brooks, like Alan Arkin, has made a fine career of playing the lovable kvetch; he's at his flabbergasted best when the world around him is mysteriously off-kilter, when the clockwork of his universe is unexplainably skipping beats. But in The In-Laws, his character is so fussy and annoying that for the first time we're inclined to root against him. The dream of a truly great podiatric action hero is no closer to fruition, I'm afraid.

I am developing an important new cinema theory, which is that no one should watch movies that Elie Samaha produces. Besides this bit of pointless lint, he's responsible for Half Past Dead, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, FearDotCom, Driven, the Get Carter remake, 3000 Miles to Graceland, Battlefield Earth and the execrable The Boondock Saints. Serpentine, people. Serpentine!

The In-Laws

Directed by Andrew Fleming A Warner Bros. release Opens Friday at area theaters.