The_late_Buddy_Ryan I've enjoyed most of David O. Russell's movies and I know it's supposed to be screwball comedy and all, but this one had a few too many goofy, contrived plot twists for my taste—like when gay ATF agent Richard Jenkins impulsively decides to follow a guy he's never met before (and whose wife his committed gay partner's been flirting with) all the way to New Mexico to help him find his birth parents. I liked the scenes where Stiller and Téa Leoni get so wrapped up in each other that they start knocking over the furniture, but it didn't seem like Téa was really pulling her weight the rest of the time, and though I was impressed by the outside-the-box casting choice of MTM as the nudzhy Jewish mother, I was kind of hoping her character wouldn't show up again after the opening scenes. Finally, I couldn't really buy Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin as desert-rat drug dealers, though I enjoyed the antics of their sociopathic teenage son. I know Russell goes in for these big ensemble comedies with everybody yelling and carrying on, but this time, as with "Silver Linings Playbook" a few years back, it seemed like the plot was already spinning out of control with 20 or 30 frantic, not-sot-funny minutes left to go. Eight stars for the first 45′, four for the second.

phd_travel 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.

SnoopyStyle Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) is having a crisis after the birth of his son. He needs to find his biological parents. His horny wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) wants to have sex. Tina Kalb (Téa Leoni) from the adoption agency finds his mother Valerie Swaney (Celia Weston) in San Diego and is willing to pay for the reunion as long as she films it for her doctoral research. His adoptive parents Pearl (Mary Tyler Moore) and Ed (George Segal) are weirdly inappropriate. Nancy is jealous of the flirting between Tina and Mel. They find out that Valerie isn't the mother after all. They track down their lowlife trucker father Fritz Boudreau. He points out that his father might actually be Richard Schlichting (Alan Alda). They run into Nancy's high school friend ATF agent Tony Kent (Josh Brolin) after Mel accidentally backs Fritz's truck into a post office. It turns out his ATF partner Paul Harmon (Richard Jenkins) is also his gay partner. Paul and Tony join them on their trip to New Mexico to meet Richard and Mary Schlichting (Lily Tomlin) who has a son Lonnie (Glenn Fitzgerald). It's sexual chaos as Mel flirts with Tina and Tony flirts with Nancy. That's before Lonnie accidentally put LSD on Paul's quail and the Coplins show up.It's super quirky, sometimes funny, and always rambling. Mary Tyler Moore is especially funny. It's a messy human train wreck careening from one end of the country to the other. Writer/director David O. Russell has pull together a cast of crazy characters in a stew of chaos. The title may be referring to the film as much as the main character. It is on the edge of being a train wreck. The fact that this stays on tracks is a miracle. Ben Stiller isn't that funny although he's tasked with the straight man role. It tries so very hard but the jokes aren't always hitting. Maybe there are too many big characters in this madcap comedy. The craziness just overwhelms everything.

bababear 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.