The In-Laws (1979) User Reviews

delightfully farcical romp!

[rupie · 7/10 · 30 June 1999]

This truly hilarious comedy is one of the funniest movies of the period. No one does the sort of deadpan face that says "I can't believe what I'm hearing and seeing" like Alan Arkin. Peter Falk's comic abilities match his skill in heavier roles. The interplay between them is marvelous, matching that of Lemmon & Matthau (one wishes they had made more films together). Many side-splitting moments, and some superbly comic dialogue. Not to be missed.

Serpentine, Shel, serpentine!!!

Falk and Arkin make splendid comedy team

[MartianOctocretr5 · 8/10 · 25 September 2006]

Alan Arkin and Peter Falk made a great comic duo in this classic comedy. Each one bounces off the other in excellently timed humor.

The story is wild and off the wall. Peter Falk's secret agent guy is too, and he has you and co-star Alan Arkin guessing whether he is a legitimate government agent, or some kind of schizophrenic maniac. The two are the respective dads of two soon to be wed kids, and their shenanigans take precedence over their offspring and the upcoming nuptials. Arkin's straight-laced everyman who rapidly waxes panicky, then neurotic due to being suddenly cast in the bizarre world of Falk makes for brilliantly hilarious contrast between the two.

Needless to say, Falk is on a case and gets Arkin inexorably caught up in the situation, which soon degenerates into a wild romp with loud explosions, shootings, and other confusion. The "Serpentine!" routine is a classic of riotous buffoonery.

Falk and Arkin understand comedy, and manipulate it well. Their comic chemistry is worthy of comparison to some of the classic duos over the years, as they ping-pong the lunacy back and forth with expert timing and delivery. This original is far better than its recent remake, and is recommended.

Fairly funny

[jeremy3 · 7/10 · 15 June 2007]

I have not seen the remake, and refuse to. I don't think that the remake could quite capture the magic that Peter Falk and Alan Arkin provide. This movie is a political satire. It spoofs the whole spy business and Latin American dictators. Falk carries the film as a seemingly weird CIA agent. Arkin is a neurotic dentist unwittingly placed in the spy game by his seemingly crazy in-law. The movie has plenty of laughs, and can be seen repeated with the laughs still being funny. The plot is a bit winding and confusing, but it is a comedy after all. Basically, the movie is carried by two great personalities -Falk and Arkin.

Genius

[msl-d · 11 June 2003]

This is one of the funniest and most underrated movies ever made. Just when you think it's about to slow down and become a normal movie, it veers in a whole other, even crazier (and arguably funnier) direction than you could have ever hoped for. With brilliant performances by Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, and Richard Libertini (who has one of the film's best lines: "These are the best security men in the world. They used to work for J.C. Penney"), this is a must see for any fan of true film comedy.

Serpentine

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 26 November 2013]

Arthur Hiller directed this funny comedy that stars Alan Arkin as Sheldon Kornpett, a successful dentist whose daughter is about to get married. The groom's father Vince Ricardo(played by Peter Falk) is cagey about his profession, but shortly before the wedding, he comes to see Sheldon at work requesting his assistance in a job related matter that escalates into a shootout and chase, where they find themselves on the run from New York City to Central America, where they become involved with a wacky dictator(played by Richard Libertini) who wants them shot... Wild and unpredictable comedy is surprisingly good, with two memorable lead performances, and a most original script.

One of my all time favorite comedies!

[cwillis_m · 10/10 · 19 June 2003]

I'm a big Peter Falk fan, so I watched this movie because he was in it. I was in for quite a surprise. It has quickly become one of my favorite comedies of all. Peter Falk and Alan Arkin are a perfect pair. The great thing about this movie is that it seems to invent itself as it goes along. The movie isn't following any type of formula, it's making itself up as it goes along, or so it seems. Very funny. My rating: 10

Excellent movie to watch

[sinryder · 6/10 · 19 February 2005]

This is, as you have read in other reviews, a great movie. My reason for writing this review is not to review the movie, you can read that in other reviews, but to let you know that the DVD is so much better than the VHS (I bought the VHS copy a couple of months before the DVD was available for pre-order, because I didn't think it would be coming out on DVD). That said, the banter between the Peter Falk and Alan Arkin is really great, and at some point, you will find yourself quoting parts of the movie. My wife, who does not like "these kinds of movies" laughed throughout the entire film. Anyway, get the DVD and give the VHS away, that's what I did.

great comedy team arkin and falk

[jackpurvin · 9/10 · 23 May 2003]

peter faulk and alan arkin make a great comedy,team, because they counterbalance each other. With a great script and a very funny adjoining cast of characters, arkin and falk takes us to a various locales and absurd locations to show a great talent of comedic timing between the two of them one being a dentist and the other, a character of enigmatic qualities. Have to see this one.

Peter Falk and Alan Alda are great together

[davidmvining · 7/10 · 27 April 2020]

In some ways, this reminded me of Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three in that both have collected characters at their core who watch their control over their world fall away and descend into anarchy. They are ultimately both quite different, but the overall movement of the plot into madness recalled each other to me.

My only real problem with the film is how it begins. Knowing nothing of the movie when I started it other than the cover art, I was surprised to see a thriller-like heist take place. It's not that I feel like comedies can't start with heist-like sequence, it's that I ended up feeling, as the movie went along, that our point of view character was Alan Arkin's Sheldon. We should have started with him in the normal environment of his dentist's office, met the crazy new father-in-law of his daughter who talked about giant flies carrying away children, and just thought of Vince as a weirdo along with him. After the first ten minutes or so, that's exactly what happens, but the first scene showing Vince having a part in a heist of a US Treasury truck tells the audience that Vince is more than just a weirdo. It's the wrong place to start.

From then, though, we do follow Sheldon as he decides to make the effort to connect with his daughter's soon to be father-in-law and do him a small favor in the middle of a workday. That small favor ends up leading to Sheldon grabbing a bag from Vince's ninth floor office, dodging bullets as he descends the fire escape to the ground floor, and running through foot traffic to avoid more bullets. Once he's in for a penny, though, Sheldon is in for a pound. He gets implicated in the treasury truck robbery and needs to attach himself to Vince in an adventure that takes them from New York to a small South American country run by a mad general who talks to his hand and loves tiger paintings. The ending is absurd and funny and brings together a lot of what came before.

My favorite bit in the movie is something that almost feels extraneous, though I think it is the perfect encapsulation of where Sheldon is at that moment. On the plane to South America, Sheldon is sitting in the back of the small aircraft with Vince flying and two Chinese people with little explanation. James Wong proceeds to explain the safety procedures of the aircraft but entirely in Mandarin with exaggerated hand gestures while Sheldon can interpret little of it. He simply watches blankly as he tries to disassociate from the events around him. Wong's funny performance combined with Arkin's Buster Keaton-esque reactions was hilarious.

It's a funny movie and a fun adventure that escalates towards its ending. I chuckled through most of it, laughed out loud occasionally, and enjoyed the experience. I just wish it had started differently.

One of the funniest films ever made

[markwat · 10/10 · 27 December 2000]

This may be one the most underrated comedies ever made. This movie has made me laugh out loud each of the many times I have seen it. One of the things that makes it really special, however, is that this would be a good movie even if it never had a funny line. The reason is that it is simply a great story. The plot is full of twists and turns, and leaves you surprised at the end. This alone would make this movie a "7." Add the numerous laughs, and this movie becomes an undenible "10."

Phone!!! Phone!!!

[jzappa · 7/10 · 7 February 2011]

The In-Laws is definitely not a movie for anyone keen on particulars. Like most of Arthur Hiller's work, it is, at best, a cheerful muddle, and it gets off to a mucky start. A Federal security truck is robbed, with the theft engineered by Peter Falk. But hold on a sec. The truck is resplendent with money, and the thieves don't even want it. They're after something else. This is the first of a few new creases.

It's dinnertime, and Falk and Arkin are meet for the first time. Arkin's daughter is to be married just a day or two later to the mastermind's son, though much will transpire between now and then. Falk is somewhat vague about his work. But he talks about Guatemala, tells some stories about giant tse-tse flies. The next day, he's more frank: he mentions he's with the CIA. That probably accounts for the autographed picture of JFK in his office, a picture that involves something he did in Cuba.

Very soon, Falk has Arkin mixed up in a Federal crime and aboard a small plane with a two-man Chinese crew. Soon they're in a Carribbean hotel, with a lobby beset with live chickens. Then they're visiting a friend of Falk's, a crazy General, whose art collection Arkin is softly warned to appreciate. Further script elements incorporate stolen US treasury mint, gangland thugs, and a South American dictatorship and its unhinged leader who channels Mr. Garrison qualities and is played by the too hilarious Richard Libertini.

Andrew Bergman has written a comedy script that accelerates gradually and crisply, and endows its leads with great clear-cut farce, so that even if the material falters, the manic on-screen presence of able comic actors will be all we could ask of it. For instance, Arkin is one of the funniest men in the movies, and most of his most side-splitting moments come from the pure spontaneity of his reactions to what happens to him, which is not something a script could provide. Only an actor. Under Hiller's simplistic and satisfactory direction, everything keeps going swiftly enough to stump audience misgivings about plotting, aggravatingly inconsistent character development and a briskly condensed time frame.

A classic of American comedy.

[reverendjay · 10/10 · 30 June 2004]

This is truly one of the most under-appreciated comedies of all time. Peter Falk and Alan Arkin are magnificent. It was shamed by the abhorrent re-make/re-visit of 2003. Don't judge this original by that pathetic after birth. Two scenes stand out as 'need to see.' The first meeting between Falk and Arkin and the subsequent dinner has many a classic line, 'Beaks? The flies had beaks?' and 'There's tremendous red-tape in the bush.' The landing in Tihara and the car chase that follows including the famous 'Serpentine!' sequence makes me laugh out loud with every viewing. 'They make a chicken sandwich. They heat it up, serve it on a hard roll, with orange juice or pineapple juice, y'know grande, a big one. And coffee. Espresso with that wonderful foam. Oh Jesus Pigs!'

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, treat yourself to this classic. If you like Monty Python, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and the like, you will absolutely enjoy The In Laws.

And you thought the Fockers were screwy.....

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 25 January 2013]

25 years before Robert DeNiro terrorized Ben Stiller in "Meet the Parents" and its two sequels, it was the bride's father terrorized here, ironically by the groom's papa, and he loves it! At first bride papa Alan Arkin thinks groom papa Peter Falk is a lunatic, but the adventure Arkin ends up on wakes him up and brings out his adventurous side, having lacked it in his life as a Manhattan dentist. Falk is involved in a bizarre plot involving the American treasury and a few South American countries, one of them who has a truly wacky dictator (Richard Libertini). From a shoot-out in mid-day midtown Manhattan to a sudden trip to Libertini's country, Arkin and Falk not only risk missing the wedding but their lives as well, desperate to get back in time to give the bride and groom a wedding day that they will never forget.

Fast-moving, funny, adventurous, and a definite crowd pleaser, this variation of the "Silver Streak" theme (two opposites paired together in some bizarre caper) is perfectly cast with the dead-pan Arkin not quite so staid but in need of some zest in his life, and Falk a fun-loving lunatic with bizarre qualities of his own who brings Arkin out of his shell. Libertini, the dictator with a "Senor Wences" like hand puppet, has his Spanish speaking army singing American ditties while having a business lunch. TV and Broadway favorite Nancy Dussault ("Too Close For Comfort") has some nice moments as Arkin's suburban wife.

A chase through Manhattan is worth seeing just for visions of how the city has (and has not) changed over the past 30 years. Having seen this in the theatre back in 1979, I had remembered the chemistry between Falk and Arkin, which hasn't depleted, and its bouncy musical theme, one which out of nowhere would pop into my head over the years even though I hadn't seen it since then.

Perhaps 34 years ago was funny

[avgalia · 5/10 · 5 July 2013]

I do not want to be too harsh because perhaps when this movie was filmed some scenes that are too familiar in today's American movies were somehow original, but even so I believe that by 1979 it was quite common to see American movies with cars chasing each other and so on. But leaving that aside, it is quite difficult to swallow that an educated dentist would accept leaving his office in the middle of an intervention to make a favour to a guy that he hardly knew. And this is how all begins. So, the script has an original sin... Nevertheless, there are some good gags and a very good performance by Alan Arkin. And of course, the usual display of utter ignorance of Americans about the culture of the other American countries. For instance to make the Hondureans speak Spanish as if they were Mexicans.

The Real Thing

[jberlin11797 · 22 April 2003]

When I was 10 years old, my family and I went to see "The In-Laws" in Florida, and we all had so much fun laughing and howling. Peter Falk and Alan Arkin are such a perfect pair in this classic comedy and they are just so inimitable. Falk is the crazed CIA agent, Arkin is the meek dentist, together, when their children plan to marry, Arkin gets involved in Falk's espionage adventures south of the border. Character actor Richard Libertini, a familiar face to many comedies with his bald pate, thick beard, and zany accents, adds to the fun as the Latin dictator who makes hand gestures with eyemakeup and lipstick drawn to his hand to the two guys in one hilarious scene. The best line of the movie is "Serpentine!" Recently, I found on the internet that Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks are going to mimic these greats in an upcoming remake with the same title as the original. Many people posted messages that they were outraged that the regularly dramatic Douglas and the dryly funny Brooks are not only reprising their roles, but also poorly copying them. Audiences at previews were equally angry and predict that the remake will fall flat on its face and there just will never, ever be another Falk and Arkin. Every actor has his/her own persona, and it is highly forced and unnatural when one actor tries to duplicate another actor's persona.

another odd couple

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 31 March 2015]

A masked gang rob a Treasury Department armor truck and steals the printing plates. Vince Ricardo (Peter Falk) needs $1.5 million by tomorrow for the plates but his son is getting married. The bride's father is mild-mannered dentist Sheldon Kornpett (Alan Arkin) and the family has never met Vince. After having the family dinner, Sheldon doesn't like Vince and tries to stop the wedding. Vince barges into Shelly's office and drags him out for 5 minutes. Vince convinces him to break into his office to get a bag while two armed goons are waiting outside. After a shootout, Vince tells him that he's actually CIA gone off the reservation to run his own operation. He had stolen the plates to lure out South American cartel who had stolen plates of other currencies and intends to create hyper inflation making the South American debts worthless. The Feds find a plate in Shelly's basement left there by Vince and the two go off on an even wilder adventure in South America.

The plot is convoluted. The characters are irrational. It makes no sense that Shelly would do anything for Vince after trying to stop the wedding. The whole operation makes no sense. It makes even less sense that Shelly would follow Vince's lead in anything. It would be a completely pointless movie if not for Alan Arkin. He's great as scared and flustering. Peter Falk is also good and their odd couple chemistry saves the movie.

One of the funniest films ever made.

[longislandjoe · 10/10 · 29 May 2006]

This movie is absolutely hysterical. And I do not mean very funny. I mean it is hysterical.

The plot is that a CIA operative and a dentist, played superbly and respectively by Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, are about to become in-laws because their two children are to be married. But Falk, about to retire from his clandestine duties, needs Arkin's help to pull off one final mission. From beginning to end the antics of these two will leave you in side-splitting humor. And the performance by Richard Libertini as a South American dictator is equal to Falk and Arkin's contribution to this classic comedy.

If you want to see an intelligent and realistic film that is extremely funny from start to finish then this is it. Don't miss it!

Cinema Omnivore - The In-Laws (1979) 6.8/10

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 7 August 2023]

"The script is best at contrasting Vince and Sheldon's personalities, in particular, underlining Sheldon's "fish-out-of-water"reluctancy, incredulity, shock when his life is ceaselessly put on the line (the life-saving serpentine walk bit is sidesplitting). Arkin (R. I. P. Legend, who just passed away this year) is divertingly proficient to play miffed and catatonic, even his cranky outburst is infused with a ghost of drollness. Falk, on the other side, is all chummy and sincere albeit his spy-like identity, oblivious of any danger and plays a straight face with great alacrity, his Vince can charm you into doing anything that is unconscionable, no wonder Sheldon cannot help but acquiesce in this unlooked-for thrill ride that almost gets him executed on a foreign land. It is alluring to experience a death-defying hog-wild excursion to enliven one's mundane life, and vicariously, for us bums on seats, such allure can never be oversold."

-

Agua fria, agua fria!!

[ejr-4 · 10/10 · 11 June 2003]

Watched it again this weekend and laughed as hard - no, harder - than the previous 20 viewings! What is it about this movie? It gets FUNNIER every time. Oh sure, everyone comments here about the biggest laugh: Serpentine! Arguably one of the funniest in film history. But there are SO MANY great lines and moments: "There's no reason to shoot at me, I'm a dentist!" "Left turn at The General Garcia Toll Bridge...it's a fitting tribute general...yes, much better than a statue." "We have no blindfolds senor, we are a poor country." Vince: "from here on in it's very cut and dry." Shelley: "it's not cut. it's not dry." How about Shelley's expression as the general pours cold water into his own hand to calm down his agitated friend? And the airline safety instructions delivered by Billy (or is it Bing?) in Chinese. IT JUST GOES ON AND ON! Tell everyone you know, don't go see the remake - rent the original!

A funny movie in the old Woody Allen genre of Bananas

[dimplet · 7/10 · 12 August 2012]

The In Laws could use some improvement. The secondary dialog could have been clever and interesting, but instead seems like filler. And the secondary acting is merely adequate.

What makes The In Laws worth watching is the interaction between Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, two great actors. It is the yin and the yang, the hot and the cool. And when you listen to them, particularly early on, it seems like improv. They really are reacting to each other.

The plot is a bit contrived, and makes little pretense of realism after awhile. But it works. You really don't know what, exactly, Falk is doing, and which side he is on, or even whether he is just crazy. That is fundamental to the movie.

Once they arrive in South America the roots of the movie become clear. This is a revamping of ideas from Woody Allen's Bananas - 1971, particularly the crazy dictator, and the American accidentally caught up in Banana Republic politics. Then the style of The Inlaws makes sense: the lightweight acting, the silliness and absurdity. It is a genre where the bar is set fairly low, but not as low as some of the so-called comedies that followed.

My favorite part, aside from the banter between Falk and Arkin, is the bit where James Hong gives a one-on-one "flight attendant" spiel to Arkin in Chinese.

Of course, Richard Libertini is great as the cracked general.

Three Cheers For the Guacamole Act of 1917!!!

[theowinthrop · 10/10 · 13 May 2007]

The premise of this film is really simple: if two families are about to enjoy the union of their children in a marriage, is it not likely that the in-laws involved can come to depend and help each other out in times of need? Most of us would probably say no, or want to know the extent of the help. However, when Vincent J. Ricardo (Peter Falk) asks Dr. Sheldon Kornpett (Alan Arkin) to assist him in retrieving something from a safe in Ricardo's office, Kornpett is willing (if somewhat suspiciously) to do it.

The reason that Kornpett is suspicious is he is not quite certain what to make of Ricardo. They only met at Kornpett's house the night before, for a dinner party introducing the families of the bride (Kornpett's) and groom (Ricardo's) to each other. Ricardo acted...well oddly. He told tales of his business travels in Central America, including how in one country babies are being carried off by huge bats that are protected by the Guacamole Act of 1917. Kornpett hears this with a blank face, although his eyes do bug out a little in disbelief. Later, when Ricardo gets testy with his son over a comment about the former not being home enough, Kornpett can't believe the near rage that Ricardo demonstrates at the table. So his suspicions about his future in-law seem well based.

Shortly, after being chased and nearly killed by two men who are after the items that Kornpett picked up, the suspicions seem confirmed. Ricardo explains to him, over pea soup in a restaurant, that he actually is not a successful salesman but a C.I.A. operative (a photo in Ricardo's office confirms this: it is of President Kennedy, and the autograph refers to the Bay of Pigs Invasion). He is in the middle of a critically important mission in Latin America dealing with international finance and a conspiracy against the richest nations. Kornpett hears him out, and is upset to hear that there is more material that Ricardo hid in Kornpett's home the night before. He wants no part of it, and leaves to go home - only to find the police there. He flees, and does evade capture - at the cost of having his car repainted in a way he never would have wanted it to look.

Soon Kornpett is forced to join forces with Ricardo, and enters the deadly serious but (here) quite farcical world of international espionage and intrigue. At the end of the road is the ringleader of the conspiracy, General Garcia (Richard Libertini) who has a special little friend that makes Al Pacino's little friend in SCARFACE lethal but sensible in comparison.

THE IN-LAWS is funny. Arkin with his tight-ass repressive personality works well against the free-wheeling, anything goes Falk. Libertini appears only in the films last twenty minutes, but he does equally nicely as the ultimate in screw-ball dictators. Well supported by a cast including Nancy Dussault, Arlene Golonka, Penny Peyser, Michael Lembeck, and Ed Begley Jr. the film is just a laugh fest until the happy ending. As mentioned elsewhere in these comments Arkin and Falk should have made several films together. They have only done one other movie together since THE IN-LAWS. Pity.

It Has Some Good Moments

[sddavis63 · 6/10 · 18 July 2008]

This is a movie that definitely has its moments. I have to give credit to Peter Falk, who put on a very strong performance as Vince Ricardo, a CIA agent whose son is getting married to the daughter of a pretty straight-laced dentist (Dr. Kornpett - Alan Arkin) who has trouble dealing with his future in-law's apparent eccentricities but ends up on a mission with him in Central America. The car chase scene is one of the better car chases I can remember in a movie, and the scene when Ricardo and Kornpett end up in front of the firing squad is worth a few laughs. I did think that Arkin came across as a bit too low-key in this movie (although he also had his moments) and to me the movie really weakened once they arrived in Central America and began to deal with a truly bizarre (to the point of being unbelievable) general (Richard Libertini) who has come up with a plan to print all the US currency he could possibly ever want.

It's largely fun to watch this, although to be honest I thought this was one of the few occasions when I would say that the remake (the really over the top 2003 version with Michael Douglas in Falk's role) was actually both stronger and funnier than the original. Still, there's nothing particularly wrong with this. It's a fun movie that will keep you entertained. 6/10

Screwball comedy is loaded with options

[slokes · 9/10 · 28 July 2003]

Peter Falk and Alan Arkin are an absolutely killer combination in this over-the-top comedy. The writer who helped pen "Blazing Saddles," Andrew Bergman, is back in a solo effort this time that downplays the profanity and adult situations of that earlier classic for a family-friendly outing that loses none of its bite or wit.

For me, this film carries the same buttoned-down lunacy of a great Bob and Ray routine, only sustained for 90 minutes, with hardly a sagging line or note. Get through the first five minutes, a fairly routine armored car robbery and a protracted stairwell run, and you will not be sorry, because the rest of "The In-Laws" is so funny, it will take you three or four eager viewings before you appreciate just how brilliant beyond belief it is. At least that's what happened with me.

It's a strangely genial film, its approach personified in Peter Falk's "friend of the world" interpretation of Vince Ricardo. There's nothing that phases him, or is too minute to warrant some breezily cheery comment, like "Is this coffee freeze-dried? It's very good." Or "The benefits [for belonging to the CIA] are terrific. The trick is not to get killed. That's the whole key to the benefits package."

Ricardo's approach is exemplified in an apron he is seen wearing at a barbeque: "I'm loaded with options." That he is, and screenwriter Bergman, too. In a somewhat desultory but still necessary DVD commentary for "In-Laws" fanatics like me, it is revealed by Bergman and director Arthur Hiller reveal the key moment for the screenplay is a fairly straight and jokeless scene between Alan Arkin's Dr. Kornpett and his daughter, where she urges him not to reject Ricardo because of his subliminated sexual jealousy about losing his daughter to Ricardo's son in marriage. Okay, maybe that does read funny, but it doesn't come across as funny.

The way the scene works, once the hapless dentist hears this, he is screwed. He has to help out Ricardo, in an inane flight from the government into the arms of the only Latin American dictator who's national flag features a topless woman, and whose apparent deputy is a Senor Wences hand puppet. You just follow along the same way Dr. Kornpett does, never knowing what to expect next, and, unlike him, enjoying it all the way through.

This film isn't laughs for everyone. Senator Jesus Braunsweiger's next-of-kin and BMW enthusiasts will find plenty to mourn. But for everyone else seeing it for the first time, it will be a joy forever, and a bit of a puzzlement: Why isn't this comedy better-known? Why don't people quote it as readily as "Caddyshack," "The Blues Brothers" or other lesser, contemporary fare?

One last thing: Alan Arkin's performance is maybe the best thing in the movie. I only realized this after repeat viewings. He's not the funniest comic actor around, frankly I never found his stuff that good in the other films of his I've seen, but here he makes the thing work. I wanted to say something about this containing the best straight-man work since Bud Abbott, but the more I see it, the less I'm sure who's the straight man. So many of the great lines are his: "There are flames on my car." "Flies with beaks?" "A Zee? A Zee?" "What flow? There isn't any flow." And to think his first line in the movie is a complaint about the viscosity of his dental bibs.

Just shut me up and go see it already. Or see it again. There's worse things you could do with your time, and not much better.

Enjoyable, yes....among the best comedies ever, no.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 19 April 2018]

According to IMDB's trivia, Premiere Magazine listed this among their '50 best comedies ever'....though after seeing the movie, I have no idea why. Sure, it's a nice film but nothing more. And, with my expectations set that high, I felt a tad disappointed.

A young couple are getting married. Unfortunately, the groom's father, Vince (Peter Falk) comes off as a real weirdo and the bride's father, Sheldon (Alan Arkin), thinks Vince is a real flake. What he doesn't know is that he's also very dangerous and soon involves Sheldon in an international plot to destroy the world's economy....via a weird dictator in the land of Tijada and with the help of the CIA.

This buddy comedy is pleasant but I remember no deep belly laughs. This is NOT to fault the movie makers....they did a decent job. Overall, worth seeing...just don't expect as much as you might have been led to believe.

An unfunny and empty comedy.

[srkutos · 3/10 · 25 July 2016]

Having read a number of reviews, I have to wonder if I saw the same movie everyone else did. I will have to admit that I do not like Allen Arkin, but not even Arthur Hiller, an actor, and director that I very much respect, could breathe life into this flaccid and boring script. I happen to have seen this film recently, and I discovered that I disliked it even more than I did when I saw it in a theater in 1978. One has to question a film's worth when its best joke/gag consists of Falk and Arkin fleeing from gunfire screaming, Serpentine, Shelly...Serpentine...big yuk!!! Perhaps I expect too much from film comedies, but I like to laugh as much as the next guy, but I found myself checking my watch wondering when this experience would be over