Flirting with Disaster (1996)

Such a frustrating disappointment

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I know that this movie has been lauded by many people. I also know that it annoys me how everyone has to start a "Worst movie ever" thread on the IMDb message boards for every movie. These are both pet peeves of mine. However I must say that no movie in my entire life has been as bad or as boring as "Flirting With Disaster."This was actually the first movie with Ben Stiller I ever watched. I have tended to avoid his movies afterwards, with the sole gem of his entire career being "Mystery Men." There was not one laugh in this film for me. The writing was cliché and boring. The characters are all despicable people who I never developed an iota of sympathy for. All this movie ends up being is a couple hours of my life which are among the most excruciating. Avoid it with a passion.

I submit there is never a single non-funny minute in this masterpiece of screwball comedy. How in heaven's name were these actors able to keep a straight face making this? Tea Leoni, especially, greets each new disaster with insincere mortification so effectively that it is the movie's best running gag.To recap, Ben Stiller is a husband, new father and adopted son of archetypely loud and quarrelsome Jewish New York parents George Segal and Mary Tyler Moore. Ben wants to find his "roots," i.e., birth parents. He has enlisted the help of adoption case worker Tea Leoni, whose somber professional manner conceals incompetence of colossal proportions.So begins a road movie as Ben, Tea and Ben's wife, played by a physically lush Patricia Arquette, and their baby set out on the quest, which seems simple at first. What they are actually plunging into is an incredibly complicated unfolding of an adopted child's real history.There's no point in going into the plot in more depth. Suffice it to say that no sooner does one set of crazy people, all of whom seem perfectly normal at first, exit the movie than a new set of crazy people pops up.Favorite scene? I'd have to say LSD "guide" Lilly Tomlin trying to talk down an LSD-lit-up Richard Jenkins. The destruction of the post office comes in a close second. Oh, but wait, there's the armpit-licking scene. And ... I give up. David O. Russell, the writer/director, take a bow.

i saw this for the first time 12 years after it first came out and looking at the great cast, the good reviews and the fact that I normally like ben stiller movies, I was questioning myself why I didn't like this. Its basically a screwball film where stiller seeks out various nutcases who may or may not be his biological parents and there is great opportunity for some hilarious scenes with the many oddball characters on display but there is either lack of chemistry or a lack of timing and it just ISN'T FUNNY. I realised this half-way through and persevered to the end but it just got worse, maybe I'm comparing it to the slick, "modern" humour of the likes of borat and 40 yr old virgin but I put it down to director David o russell who was the gaffer for i heart huckabees, a movie i absolutely loathed. This isn't terrible, it is watchable and there are a couple of funny situations but all-in-all a big, big disappointment for me considering the cast and lead.

Absent since 2004's misbegotten "I Heart Huckabees", filmmaker David O. Russell made a ramshackle screwball farce back in 1996 that's well worth revisiting on DVD, at least until his next film comes along. He was able to blend character-driven humor with moments of pure slapstick as he tracks the misadventures of Mel Coplin, a neurotic entomologist on a frantic search for his birth parents to resolve his long-standing issues with identity. Tina Kalb, a leggy, off-kilter adoption agency worker thinks she's found Mel's mother in San Diego, so Mel, Tina, and Mel's sweetly frumpy wife Nancy, nursing their five-month baby, embark on a journey that becomes ever more haphazard with every turn of events. Unsurprisingly, an attraction develops between Mel and Tina, who is anxious to get pregnant herself. They meet a gallery of eccentric characters in what becomes a memorably wacky road trip. The real coup with this under-appreciated film is the casting. Long before he sold himself up the river with execrably witless comedies like "Meet the Fockers" and "The Heartbreak Kid", Ben Stiller was a promising actor of relative subtlety, and he expertly mans the rudder as Mel with his skittish self-containment. An actress who never seems to fulfill her potential, Téa Leoni brings a mix of klutziness and sexy smarts to the incompetent Tina. As Nancy, Patricia Arquette has a soft, fuzzy quality that makes a nice contrast to Leoni's angularity.Russell was smart to cast four veterans as Mel's two sets of parents. As his adoptive parents, George Segal and a cast-against-type Mary Tyler Moore are hilarious playing classic New York Jewish stereotypes. Moore, in particular, has a field day playing the obnoxious dark side of Rhoda Morgenstern rightfully proud of her unsagging breasts. As the couple who turn out to be Mel's real parents, Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin are equally funny as graying New Mexico hippies heavy into their art and LSD. When Mel meets them, that's when the film becomes a whirlwind, "Noises Off"-type of farce with all the personal shenanigans coming to a head. Playing a gay couple who happen to be FBI agents, a surprisingly deft Josh Brolin ("No Country for Old Men") and the always dependable Richard Jenkins (superb in this year's "The Visitor") shine as bickering personality opposites. Glenn Fitzgerald as Mel's psychotic brother and Celia Weston as a Reagan-loving Southern matron round out a razor-sharp cast. It all ends rather abruptly, but Russell shows a genuine talent for juggling a lot of comic possibilities with supple dexterity. The 2004 Collector's Edition DVD is light on extras - just three deleted scenes, a few outtakes that don't compare to the final film, and a brief featurette on the film's development and production.