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It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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

Flirting with Disaster (1996)This is one of those movies that's just plain stupid in such a funny way you'll likely laugh out loud a lot. And you'll finish thinking it's a pretty stupid movie. The ending in particular makes you wonder what all the build up was about since it diffuses, as if the writers ran out of conflicts (or solutions) and raised their hands in surrender.But on the way there is one funny gag after another. And a whole slew of excellent actors doing their zany best. Some of them have very brief (and contained) appearances, for sure--Lily Tomlin and Alan Alda, for example, in a hilarious section of the movie with little connection to the rest of it. In fact, the whole movie is broken into spasmodic sections, held together mostly by the three leading leads (there are lots of main characters): Ben Stiller (looking for his biological parents), Patricia Arquette (his suffering, sweet wife), and Tea Leoni (the mentally incomplete but skinny and sexy interloper). Stiller isn't actually totally funny by himself, but acts like more of a foil for all the crazy things happening around him (this is his style on purpose, a kind of regular guy in an irregular world). Arquette is almost too normal for this abnormal world, but that's fine, she's likable, and is meant to be the loving wife who doesn't quite know how zany the events around her are. At first. Leoni has a terrific way of making nutty faces and being just slightly insane without being just stupid (the way Will Ferrell is just stupid in a different kind of humor). There are gay jokes and jokes about LSD and a general playing of an ultra-licentious world against what seems to be a normal human desire to connect with your genetic parents, unknown to you. The mistakes along the way are what make it hilarious. Until the end, where it maybe is trying to say, "Oh well, everything is okay in a world where anything goes." Sure. Pop the big bubble, but on the way it's a gas. No pun intended.

I know that this movie has been lauded by many people. I also know that it annoys me how everyone has to start a "Worst movie ever" thread on the IMDb message boards for every movie. These are both pet peeves of mine. However I must say that no movie in my entire life has been as bad or as boring as "Flirting With Disaster."This was actually the first movie with Ben Stiller I ever watched. I have tended to avoid his movies afterwards, with the sole gem of his entire career being "Mystery Men." There was not one laugh in this film for me. The writing was cliché and boring. The characters are all despicable people who I never developed an iota of sympathy for. All this movie ends up being is a couple hours of my life which are among the most excruciating. Avoid it with a passion.