“Little Fockers” may not be the worst, most vulgar, most pathetic and least funny picture of the year. But it’s a strong contender for second place behind the picture Brett Favre allegedly sent over his cellphone.
According to the third film in the Ben Stiller-Robert De Niro “Focker” series, the worst so far, comedy means slapping up some situation that would never happen, having someone else stumble in to misread things and, when lost, getting everyone to repeat bits from the earlier movies or simply say “Focker.” A lot.
Even when it makes no sense: Visiting his son-in-law Gaylord/Greg Focker (Stiller) for an inexplicably lengthy two weeks before the grandchildren’s birthday party, Jack Byrnes (De Niro) worries about mortality and wants to tap the next family leader. So he solemnly asks Greg, “Are you prepared to be . . . the Godfocker?” (Cue “Godfather” music.) Is it likely that this could be a nickname for the head of the Byrnes clan? Which, naturally, Jack would want to be led by someone who is not a blood relative whom he doesn’t like.
Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, as the senior Fockers, turn up to address their son as “Gay” or to talk loudly about their sex habits. Jessica Alba — her pharmaceutical-sales rep is supposed to get laughs because she is named “Andi Garcia” — shows up at male nurse Focker’s hospital, inexplicably signs him up to give speeches on her erectile-dysfunction drug, then strips down to her undies and jumps him — while Jack is spying on poor Gaylord.
I’m not even sure the real Ben Stiller, the funny one with the nine-figure net worth, could get Jessica Alba. But Gaylord the married, harried he-nurse, the man who spends his days wielding an enema tube — Gaylord the woebegone thousandaire? And even if she did want you, and was blind to all of the rich surgeons all around, would she have to undress and hurl herself on you? Has Jessica Alba ever had to put that much effort into anything?
Out of nowhere, Stiller and De Niro do a parody of the subway chase from “The French Connection.” (They sure picked the wrong audience for that gag — “CSI” jokes would have been better.)
Without much cause, a now sadly middle-aged Owen Wilson hangs around again as the golden best friend to flirt with Greg’s wife again (accidentally, he got a giant back tattoo of her).
Jack, having taken erectile-dysfunction drugs, gets stuck in a persistent state of excitement (which is not a condition anyone will otherwise associate with this film) for the sole reason that the movie wants us to imagine (nothing is shown) Greg plunging a giant syringe into Jack’s, er, little focker. Even more alarmingly — in this scene the camera doesn’t cut away — Wilson kisses Streisand.
As it struggles to fill a directionless hour and a half, the movie devises comedy setups that go nowhere. A would-be spoof of competitive kindergartens leads us all the way to . . . Jack and Greg being mistaken for a gay couple. Jack, that old superspy, spies on Greg, who . . . immediately catches him. Jack says he’s just looking for milk, and goes away.
De Niro and Harvey Keitel, as a lazy contractor, come face to face and . . . yell boringly at each other about a hole in the ground that isn’t supposed to be there. One wonders at what point, on the set, Harvey and Bob caught each other in a gaze that said, “You know — we did ‘Mean Streets’ and ‘Taxi Driver’ together.” More likely: They simply averted their glances in shame.
“Little Fockers,” which is as funny as the two heart attacks suffered by Jack, sprints past “unfunny,” is still going strong when it reaches “disaster” and easily reaches “cautionary tale.” Director Paul Weitz has made three straight movies (including “American Dreamz” and “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant”) of such boundless ineptitude that I’d rather watch student films, or even “Glee.”
Writers John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey should have their headshots and names displayed on the walls at comedy writing workshops for the same reason driver’s ed classes had those memorable films of car crashes. “Can a girl poop from her vagina?” a kid asks at a family dinner. No, son, but you’d be surprised what can come out of a hack’s word processor.