Flirting with Disaster Reviews

We often talk about how many actors managed to make some impressive come-backs in their career such as John Travolta, Robert Downey Jr. or Mickey Rourke but, very often, we tend to forget that for some directors, the path was also pretty hazardous and David O. Russell is one perfect example. Indeed, after helming 3 movies, he was hailed as the next best thing. Unfortunately, even though Russell was definitely a talented director, he also had some issues and he got the reputation of being quite impossible to work with (Among other things George Clooney punched him while shooting ‘Three Kings’ and he had a major falling out with Mark Wahlberg after working with him on 3 movies over a decade because Russell cast Bradley Cooper as the lead instead of Wahlberg in his last movie). Anyway, as a result, Russell managed to make only one movie between 1999 and 2010, the barely seen ‘I Heart Huckabees’. Fortunately for him, he made a major comeback in 2010 with ‘The Fighter’ which was nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award and there is good chance that his last movie, ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, will be nominated as well. Anyway, way before this, before his breakthrough with ‘Three Kings’, David O. Russell directed this small wacky comedy and I thought it was pretty good. Indeed, there was a very good cast (Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Téa Leoni, George Segal, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin), they delivered some solid performances and there were some seriously hilarious scenes. The main issue I had is that the story was honestly rather stupid. Ok, Ben Stiller wants to meet his biological parents, that’s fine but he keeps meeting the wrong folk and every time he has to get back on the road. It was honestly a rather limited concept. Still, thanks to the great dialogs and the actors involved, I really enjoyed it anyway. To conclude, even though I’m usually rather critical about comedies, I really liked this one and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.