I've enjoyed most of David O. Russell's movies and I know it's supposed to be screwball comedy and all, but this one had a few too many goofy, contrived plot twists for my taste—like when gay ATF agent Richard Jenkins impulsively decides to follow a guy he's never met before (and whose wife his committed gay partner's been flirting with) all the way to New Mexico to help him find his birth parents.
I liked the scenes where Stiller and Téa Leoni get so wrapped up in each other that they start knocking over the furniture, but it didn't seem like Téa was really pulling her weight the rest of the time, and though I was impressed by the outside-the-box casting choice of MTM as the nudzhy Jewish mother, I was kind of hoping her character wouldn't show up again after the opening scenes. Finally, I couldn't really buy Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin as desert-rat drug dealers, though I enjoyed the antics of their sociopathic teenage son.
I know Russell goes in for these big ensemble comedies with everybody yelling and carrying on, but this time, as with "Silver Linings Playbook" a few years back, it seemed like the plot was already spinning out of control with 20 or 30 frantic, not-sot-funny minutes left to go. Eight stars for the first 45′, four for the second.
I liked the scenes where Stiller and Téa Leoni get so wrapped up in each other that they start knocking over the furniture, but it didn't seem like Téa was really pulling her weight the rest of the time, and though I was impressed by the outside-the-box casting choice of MTM as the nudzhy Jewish mother, I was kind of hoping her character wouldn't show up again after the opening scenes. Finally, I couldn't really buy Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin as desert-rat drug dealers, though I enjoyed the antics of their sociopathic teenage son.
I know Russell goes in for these big ensemble comedies with everybody yelling and carrying on, but this time, as with "Silver Linings Playbook" a few years back, it seemed like the plot was already spinning out of control with 20 or 30 frantic, not-sot-funny minutes left to go. Eight stars for the first 45′, four for the second.