FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
BelSports
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Ariella Broughton
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
joshyr-987-939529
Non stop hilarity from start to finish - if you haven't seen this movie you really need to ASAP.Great script, and the amazing ensemble cast is fantastic. David O Russell's first film is his best, as well as one of the seminal comedies of the 1990s.One of those rare comedies that I can watch over and over - the soundtrack fits the film like a glove. Ben Stiller has made quite a few movies since this early one, but none come close to this one (with the exception of There's Something About Mary).See this film - you won't be sorry.
Roedy Green
Most important is the cast. It is filled with familiar actors you just love to watch including Ben Stiller, Mary Tyler Moore, Ben Stiller, Alan Alda and Lilly Tomlin. It has a young, beardless, extremely sexy Josh Brolin looking a bit like Matt Damon. Patricia Arquette (Medium) is in it. Glenn Fitzgerald also plays a young hunk, but one so weird you could not really consider him attractive.The basic plot is Ben Stiller (Mel Coplin) travelling from place to place to find his birth parents. He runs into a number of possibilities each weird in his/her own way.Within this loose framework, it feels more like improvisation. Scenes just sort of peter out after a while. The humour is the characters running out their day-to-day (but weird) behaviour. There are not many site gags or bon mots. It is just the fun of watching weird people reacting to unfamiliar situations. I think I laughed hardest at Téo Leone with her long legs like an ostrich striding to get away from a crazed truck driver. She had to look elegant even when her life was at stake.One of the themes is adultery, just what constitutes adultery, and what you should do about it both as adulterer and adulteree. Poor Ben breaks in on a very handsome man licking his bored wife's armpit. How should he react? Etiquette books don't cover this.It is a very gay friendly movie given that in was made in 1996. Homosexuality is treated as just one more comic opportunity. The two gay characters are quite far from the stereotypes. That treatment was refreshing and funny.It is a bit of a sloppy movie, but it is fun just the same.
bobsgrock
Flirting with Disaster is a true companion to classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. Not too unlike Howard Hawk's Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday, David O. Russell's outrageous and often funny comedy takes its absurd and wild tone to the very end, seemingly slamming on the brakes just at the moment when we feel as if there is more to learn about these characters. This may be true but Russell's intention is to show us their behavior in this particular instance, that is finding Mel's (Ben Stiller) parents.Films like this depend almost entirely on the acting and writing for success. Fortunately, here they both are superb. The cast alone makes the film worth checking out. Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, all the way down to Josh Brolin and Richard Jenkins as a couple of federal agents make their characters as weird, interesting and watchable as any comedy of the last 20 years. What also succeeds is the pacing of Russell's script, which is light on drama but moves at such a rampant speed that you barely have time to catch your breath in between jokes and situations. Needless to say, this film is a treasure. Not much more can be said without ruining the marvelous surprises and bizarre circumstances it has to lay out. All that is required is to turn off your conceptions of coincidence, realism and contrivance and simply enjoy a most enjoyable story about a man looking for identity and realizing perhaps he shouldn't have.
kneiss1
This is an average Ben Stiller movie. And if I say "average Ben Stiller movie", it must be pretty good comedy compared to other movies. I can't say I am a fan of Ben Stiller, but I like his movies. There really isn't much wrong with this movie... only that it could have been even funnier. Sadly this movie has no visual, nor audible characteristics. Pretty much all this movie is about, is the comedy (and relationships). The comedy itself though never is too silly. That is the real strengths of the movie. Even though Characters are totally extreme, they don't feel absolutely unrealistic. That is very unusual for a Hollywood comedy movie.- I found it refreshing.
