Meet the Fockers cast members Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, and Blythe Danner. Multiple award winners Streisand, Hoffman, De Niro, and Danner have chosen to lend their names to a fetid Ben Stiller comedy geared to the millions of moviegoers who turned Bobby and Peter Farrelly’s crudely infantile There’s Something About Mary (1998) – also starring Stiller, alongside the New York Film Critics Circle’s Best Actress winner (gasp!) Cameron Diaz – into a major box office hit.
Award-winning ‘Meet the Fockers’ cast members flush their talent & prestige down the toilet in rancid Ben Stiller comedy
Meet the Fockers cast members Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, and Blythe Danner – four of the six principals in Jay Roach’s “families” comedy – have among themselves five Academy Awards for acting and an additional ten nominations, one Tony win and six additional nominations, and numerous other acting awards and nominations from various film groups and institutions from around the world.
What to do with all that honor and prestige?
Well, how about throwing them into the fetid garbage dumpster of a Ben Stiller comedy about chopped-off foreskin, babies that say “asshole,” and little dogs that get flushed down the toilet?
You won’t believe that those four Meet the Fockers cast members have actually done what they’ve done – to put it simply, that Streisand, Hoffman, De Niro, and Danner have allowed themselves to be a part of this cinematic sewer – unless you see it for yourselves.
Unrelentingly stupid hero for the masses
A sequel to Jay Roach’s 2000 box office hit Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers features two disparate families – the hippieish Fockers (Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand) and the traditionalist Byrneses (Robert De Niro, Blythe Danner) – who meet for the first time shortly before the wedding of their children, Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo).
Besides being incredibly, unrelentingly stupid, Greg is also a walking bad-luck magnet. Whatever can go wrong with him, does.
As if that weren’t way more than enough, the Byrnes patriarch, a constipated right-wing Republican and former CIA agent, will do whatever it takes to prevent (the Jewish) Greg from marrying his (WASPish) daughter.
Papa Byrnes should have resolved the matter the CIA way, but tragically no swift assassinations take place in Meet the Fockers. Ben Stiller’s Greg and his family members and in-laws are all still very much alive at the end, ready for the next neuron-zapping, vomit-inducing sequel.
Meet the Fockers (2004)
Dir.: Jay Roach.
Scr.: John Hamburg and James Herzfeld. From an original story by Herzfeld and Marc Hyman. Characters created by Greg Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke.
Cast: Robert De Niro. Ben Stiller. Dustin Hoffman. Barbra Streisand. Blythe Danner. Teri Polo. Owen Wilson. Tim Blake Nelson. Shelley Berman. Alanna Ubach. Ray Santiago. Jack Plotnick.
‘Meet the Fockers’ trailer
The Meet the Fockers trailer further below features cast members Ben Stiller and Teri Polo, plus:
- Two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro (Best Supporting Actor for Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II, 1974; Best Actor for Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, 1980).
- Best Actress Oscar winner Barbra Streisand (for William Wyler’s Funny Girl, 1968; tied with Katharine Hepburn for Anthony Harvey’s The Lion in Winter). Additionally, Streisand won a second Oscar for composing with Paul Williams the song “Evergreen,” for Frank Pierson’s 1976 A Star Is Born remake, in which she also starred opposite Kris Kristofferson.
- Two-time Best Actor winner Dustin Hoffman (for Robert Benton’s Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979, and Barry Levinson’s Rain Man, 1988).
- Tony winner Blythe Danner (for Leonard Gershe’s Milton Katselas-directed Butterflies Are Free, 1969–1970).
Curiously, Danner and Polo go unnamed in the trailer of Universal/DreamWorks’ lowest-of-the-lowbrow comedy. See below.
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Meet the Fockers cast info via the IMDb.
Image of Meet the Fockers cast members Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, and Blythe Danner: Universal Pictures / DreamWorks Pictures.
“Meet the Fockers: Cast Prestige Flushed Down Ben Stiller Comedy Sewer” last updated in May 2019.