Reviewed by Libby Drake, Monday 26th December 2016
If you enjoy films where every second word starts with 'f', that have loads of gags involving toilets and poo, constant references to the state of the male anatomy, oral sex jokes, men with sex obsessions, adolescents with 'titties' fixations, and pictures of various animals copulating then, boy, is
Why Him? the film for you.
University student Stephanie (Zoey Deutch) convinces her parents to visit her in California for Christmas and meet her boyfriend Laird (
James Franco). Laird is loud, obnoxious, highly tattooed, extremely rich, socially inept and not very bright. Laird tries hard to impress his girlfriend's family with a gourmet chef for the evening, a bowling alley built for Stephanie's father Ned, much flattering of her mother Barb, and a picture of the family tattooed on his back. Ned is not impressed. When Laird asks Ned for permission to marry his daughter he says "no". Laird tries to win him over but, after a scene where a huge art installation of a dead moose suspended in urine breaks and floods the room, trapping Stephanie's young brother, Scotty, underneath the moose, the whole family return home for Christmas. The rest continues in much the same way as Meet the Parents. Why Him?, in fact, is basically another version of Meet the Parents, only more crude, less funny, and less interesting.
All the way through the film there is a constant barrage of f-bombs, although you won't see any of these in the highly sanitised trailer! In the TV series Deadwood every second or third word was an f-bomb, with some occasional variety. The scriptwriters wrote with such skill that the use of words, phrasing and rhythms created a kind of hypnotic poetry. This is not the case in Why Him?
The scenes based on Kato, from the Pink Panther movies, demonstrate a huge lack of imagination, even though a lame attempt is made to justify them.
The notion that Stephanie could be in love with Laird and want to spend her life with him is totally unbelievable and there is little chemistry between the two. Laird's lack of ability to modify his language while trying to impress Stephanie's parents is tedious.
There are a few funny scenes along the way; it is not totally without humour. When Stephanie is Skyping her parents she doesn't see Laird come into the room and take his pants off. This is a real life dilemma when using Skype and sets up for genuinely funny, or disastrous, scenarios. Most of the humour, however, is much the same, and it becomes very much a one track record.
All the cast are good in their roles although Breaking Bad's
Bryan Cranston falls short of
Robert De Niro.
Megan Mullally's performance as Stephanie's mother Barb was perhaps the most enjoyable, although quite similar to Beverly D'Angelo as Ellen Griswold in the Vacation movies.
Griffin Gluck, playing Scotty, is a young actor to watch out for.
This film didn't need to be made, the only new concept is that the boyfriend is very rich, a Silicon Valley millionaire. John Hamburg, one of the writers of Meet the Parents, wrote and directed Why Him?, and
Ben Stiller is one of the producers. It's unclear why they felt the need for this remake.
Stephanie says that Laird "has no filter". I suggest that it is the producers of this film who have no filter!
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