Frat Packers just get better

Stiller vs. Hoffman
Still, gives them their props. Ferrell is the most natural comedian to hit movies since Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson ain’t bad either (although he’s starting to annoy), and Stiller, while not as naturally funny, is talented in the way that Dan Aykroyd or Dana Carvey are talented. Witness his spookily accurate rendition of David Starsky. His trouble: he can be so uncompromising his characters come off as one-note. You wish for a little play in the line, a glimmer of something else. Even in his more prestigious pictures — “Permanent Midnight,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” — his characters don’t suggest variation. And put him beside a real actor? Gene Hackman or Dustin Hoffman? Forget it.

Both “Meet the Parents” and “Meet the Fockers” did insane business ($330 million and $513 million worldwide), but “Parents” suffered because there was nothing to offset De Niro’s character. Stiller responded with polite dishonesty — the attempt to fit in — the emasculated Jew among the WASPs — and polite dishonesty is rarely interesting.

“Fockers,” though, had Hoffman, who responded with polite honesty. “We’re honest people!” he shouts at Stiller, but the son doesn’t get it. When, during their first dinner together, De Niro attempts to emasculate his host by saying, “[Your wife] is the primary breadwinner and you didn’t have a job,” the look of polite hurt on Hoffman’s face, and the depths it suggests, took the movie to a new level. In contrast, even when the son is injected with truth serum he doesn’t become honest like his father. He becomes a jerk — a Hollywood producer-type — which is an odd choice for a nurse from Chicago but a good choice for the son of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Which is why it’s a bad choice.

Getting better
I wanted to wrap this piece up with the thought that maybe these guys are like the cut-ups in class that the teacher has to separate before they can do real work. That Sinatra was at his best away from the Rat Pack and maybe the Frat Packers are better away from each other, too. Think Vince Vaughn in “Swingers” and Will Ferrell in “Elf” and Jack Black in “High Fidelity” and Owen Wilson in the Jackie Chan movies and Ben Stiller in “There’s Something About Mary” and the underrated “Mystery Men.” They ruled in these movies. “Zoolander”? Not so much.

Then I saw “Wedding Crashers” and it hit me: They’re actually getting better. Their only stinker in the last four years has been “Envy.” Through “Old School” and “Starsky & Hutch” and “Dodgeball” and “Anchorman,” they keep delivering, but “Crashers” may be the best of the bunch. It’s an original concept (by Steve Faber and Bob Fisher) and doesn’t rely on nostalgia or bionic soundtracks. Sure, it loses itself in the last half hour, but for the first 90 minutes it’s raunchy and funny, with Owen Wilson initially playing to type (laid-back lothario) before morphing into brother Luke (lovelorn and handsome). And Vince Vaughn? Ain’t laid-back no more. He’s at his finger-snappin’, cherry-poppin’, fast-talkin’ best. Welcome back, baby. Never leave.

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