Flirting with Disaster (1996)

This comedy is a real gem and not that well known. Came across the DVD recently and can't believe hadn't heard of it before with such a top notch cast. Ben Stiller acts as a man looking for his biological parents. His wife is played by Patricia Arquette. Tea Leoni is excellent and plays the adoption agency person helping them. Along the way they come across a variety of wrong parents and the right ones from San Diego to Michigan to New Mexico. The humor is original and unexpected and builds subtly to some hilarious scenarios with some sparkling dialog. Josh Brolin is great as a cop and friend of the wife. There are elements of a good play elements combined with top notch comedic talent. A must watch.

Review: It's always good to watch actors earlier work so you can see how far they have come. In this case I chose Ben Stiller who hasn't really changed his style of comedy that much since 1996. His mannerisms and silly face expressions are more or less the same but he's got bigger budgets to play with nowadays so he doesn't have to rely on his performances to much, like in Tropic Thunder and Night At the Museum. Anyway, this movie is about Stiller hunting for his biological parents after his wife gives birth to his son. With the help of his wife and his sexy adoption agency worker, who wants to film the whole event, they start there journey which has its ups and downs. The adoption agency ends up getting Stillers biological parents identify wrong so there journey becomes bigger then they first thought. When he finally tracks down his parents, the situation goes from bad to worse because of his parents weird habits and strange lifestyle. The movie was quite funny in parts but the storyline is extremely far fetched. The young Josh Brolin and his gay partner, played by Richard Jenkins, was quite a weird choice by the director but they played there parts quite well. I've always been a fan of George Segal and I liked the chemistry between Alan Ada and Lily Tomlin but I did lose interest after a while. Anyway, it's light hearted fun which is silly in parts, but watchable. Average!Round-Up: It's weird seeing Josh Brolin star in a comedy were he is playing a gay role after seeing him in butch movies like Oldboy, No Country For Old Men and Sin City. The movie was made earlier on in his career so I can't blame him for taking on the project. This was also made earlier on in Ben Stillers career and it really does prove that his range is limited because he hasn't progressed as a comedian that much. His films always gross a lot at the box office and with Rentaghost and Zoolander 2 in the pipework, he is still a bankable actor for the big studios. I know a lot of people that are fed up with his movies but I doubt that he will go down the same route as Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy, who find it hard to pull in the big audiences nowadays. Budget: $7million Worldwide Gross: $15millionI recommend this movie to people who are into their comedies about a man whose trying to find his biological parents so he can name his newborn baby. 4/10

Scanning the other reviews on here, I realize I'm totally in the minority here. But I thought this was a total stinker.I kept watching, hoping that it would get better. But the more I watched, the more I thought the screenplay was the byproduct of watching too many Woody Allen movies.The biggest problem was that I just couldn't believe what was going on before my eyes. Maybe I'm too much of a "meat and potatoes" mindset, but the characters and situations just got more and more unrealistic and I cared less and less about these people.This is only the third David O. Russell film I've seen. SPANKING THE MONKEY was clever. After trying to watch it three times I finally gave up on I HEART HUCKABEES. After this, I've added him to my mental checklist of Film Makers to Avoid.Hack though Mr. Russell may be, though, he couldn't get a bad performance out of Richard Jenkins.

I am amazed that this film is not in IMDb's top 250.I rented this years ago, back when video was around, and it was the only film I ever rented where I rewound the tape and immediately watched the whole thing again. Everything works. The cast is perfect, the writing is perfect. Most comedies are lucky to be funny -- Flirting works as an incisive story about a marriage going thru a tuff patch -- it could have been an excellent drama -- and as a screwball comedy. Is there another movie that does that? I can't think of one. This is a modern classic. It's awesome. It's unique. 20 years from now, will anyone remember Forget Sarah Marshall? I liked that film, but 20 years from now, it'll be lucky to be a footnote. Flirting will be remembered and watched. Trust me. Bringing up Baby wasn't a success upon release. But it's a classic that endures, and so will Flirting. One day, it will be in that top 250. Time usually corrects.