The In-Laws

United States, Germany, Canada

2003

98 Min

Color

1.85:1

English, French, Mandarin

Currently 1.9/5 Stars.
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EXEC David Coatsworth, Oliver Hengst, Tracee Stanley, Andrew Stevens

PROD Bill Gerber, Elie Samaha, Joel Simon, Bill Todman Jr.

SCR Andrew Fleming, Nat Mauldin, Ed Solomon

CAST Albert Brooks, Michael Douglas, Ryan Reynolds, Lindsay Sloane, Maria Ricossa, Robin Tunney, Michael Bodnar, Vladimir Radian, David Suchet, Boyd Banks, Susan Aceron, Chang Tseng, Tamara Gorski, Matt Birman, A. Russell Andrews, Richard Waugh, Sergio Di Zio, Candice Bergen, Aaron Abrams, Emmy Laybourne, Kristin Chenoweth

ED Mia Goldman, Heather Persons

MUSIC Klaus Badelt, James S. Levine

When prospective fathers-in-law Steve Tobias and Jerry Peyser meet for the first time to celebrate their children’s upcoming marriage, the cake hits the fan. Dr. Jerome Peyser is a mild-mannered podiatrist with a well-organized daily routine designed to eliminate all possible sources of stress. Meanwhile, daredevil CIA operative Steve Tobias moves through life like a heat-seeking missile. His average day consists of dodging bullets, stealing private jets and negotiating with international arms smugglers. Now he’s giving potential father-of-the-bride Jerry a serious case of pre-nuptial jitters. Steve’s dramatic entrances and exits, his cryptic references to a Russian runaway named Olga and his fight with a gunman in a restaurant washroom causes Jerry to see a vision of his daughter’s perfectly planned wedding blowing up in his face. As far as Jerry’s concerned, letting Steve into his family takes til death do us part way too literally. Before he can say the wedding is off, Jerry suddenly finds himself embroiled in the chaos that follows in Steve’s wake as he is dragged kicking and screaming into a series of perilous adventures that take the mismatched in-laws-to-be halfway around the world. —IMDb

Director

Andrew Fleming

Openly gay ‘Generation X’ filmmaker Andrew Fleming acquired a reputation as a wunderkind shortly after leaving New York University’s prestigious film school. The last of his three award-winning student films there, “P.P.T.”, earned him a fellowship at Warner Bros., and he teamed with no less a producer than Gale Ann Hurd (“Terminator” 1984; “Aliens” 1986) for his feature directing and writing debut “Bad Dreams” (1988), a largely ignored psychological horror film. Although some found it stylish in a sort of David Cronenbergian way, many questioned Hurd’s involvement in an “entertainment” so clearly celebrating doom and utterly devoid of hope, aimed shamelessly at the teen market.

Prior to “Bad Dreams”, Fleming’s interests had primarily lain in the technical side of filmmaking, but after a hiatus to learn how to write, he resurfaced with his follow-up feature, “Threesome” (1994), an amusing coming-of-age college story. Boasting an attractive young cast (Lara Flynn Boyle, Stephen… read more

Openly gay ‘Generation X’ filmmaker Andrew Fleming acquired a reputation as a wunderkind shortly after leaving New York University’s prestigious film school. The last of his three award-winning student films there, “P.P.T.”, earned him a fellowship at Warner Bros., and he teamed with no less a producer than Gale Ann Hurd (“Terminator” 1984; “Aliens” 1986) for his feature directing and writing debut “Bad Dreams” (1988), a largely ignored psychological horror film. Although some found it stylish in a sort of David Cronenbergian way, many questioned Hurd’s involvement in an “entertainment” so clearly celebrating doom and utterly devoid of hope, aimed shamelessly at the teen market.

Prior to “Bad Dreams”, Fleming’s interests had primarily lain in the technical side of filmmaking, but after a hiatus to learn how to write, he resurfaced with his follow-up feature, “Threesome” (1994), an amusing coming-of-age college story. Boasting an attractive young cast (Lara Flynn Boyle, Stephen Baldwin and Josh Charles) caught up in a somewhat unconventional love triangle, the movie outstandingly and believably expressed the sex-saturated state-of-mind of 20-year-olds and represented a giant leap forward for the screenwriter. Solid tech contributions gave the independent feature the polished look of a bigger budget studio effort.

The refreshingly unpretentious writer-director “nailed” the high school experience for “The Craft” (1996), a supernatural thriller and black-comedy clone of “Heathers” (1989), featuring four toothsome “witches” (Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell, Rachel True) grounded in a realistic setting. Fleming’s ship ran aground when it abdicated its strong narrative in favor of well-executed special effects, culminating in a showdown battle between Balk (in full-blown punk Medusa frenzy) and Tunney, the recent convert with a conscience. He continued in the high school milieu with “Dick” (1999), a period piece bringing two teenagers in contact with such Watergate era characters as President Nixon (Dan Hedaya), James Dean (Jim Breuer) and G. Gordon Liddy (Harry Shearer), among others. —TCM

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