The stage is initially set for their tug of war when Greg reveals that he's more of a 'dog person' to cat-loving Jack. "You prefer an emotionally shallow animal," Jack retorts. Other early faux pas see Greg accidentally shattering the urn that stores the ashes of Jack's mother and confessing that he's a male nurse instead of a doctor by choice, an unfathomable career move in Jack's ultra-conservative worldview. So much so that he doesn't believe Greg, and subjects him to a late-night polygraph test.

Lately, DeNiro has leaned towards comic material, and his Jack easily outclasses and outjokes the roles he played in either Analyze This or Rocky & Bullwinkle. As written by James Herzfeld (ironically a co-scriptor on Meet the Deedles) and John Hamburg, the character astutely banks on DeNiro's naturally intimidating demeanour while inhibiting the actor's tendency to ham it up. It's as complex and subtly wrought a performance as anything the actor's shown us since Martin Scorsese's 1982 masterpiece The King of Comedy. Stiller, portraying yet another consonant repackaging of Woody Allen's familiar nebbish, comes a notch closer to America's favourite underdog with Meet the Parents, and he'll convert non-fans forever with the climactic tongue-lashing Greg delivers a flight attendant. Quite simply, this Focker has us laughing out loud frequently and abundantly.

When we're not shielding our eyes in sympathetic embarrassment, that is. Aye, there's the rub: mild blushing from audience members ripens into full-blown squirming past the halfway point of Meet the Parents. The escalating damage caused by Greg's lonesome is enough for an entire season's worth of Urkel mishaps (and often as agonizing as that sounds), and a bit too much, perhaps, of Greg's enfeeblement relies on Idiot Plot machinations (roughly defined by Ebert as problems that could be painlessly resolved if the characters approached one another as they would in life).

Besides extracting fine work from a top-flight cast, including Owen Wilson as a Christian everyman, the son-in-law of Jack's dreams (for a too short but hilarious time, the film confronts Focker's Jewishness with acerbic glee), Roach succeeds at capturing the appealingly chilly atmosphere of autumn--despite Peter James' undistinguished cinematography, we feel a participant in this folksy homecoming. An occasionally reluctant guest at that, of course: the fun in watching Greg self-immolate eventually peaks.-Bill Chambers