Honey, There is Someone I'd Like You to Meet: The In-Laws

“The trick is not to get killed. That's really the key to the benefits program.” Vincent Riccardo, CIA

Peter Falk and Alan Arkin star as an “odd couple” that gets thrown together because their children are getting married next Sunday.

Arkin (Sheldon) stars as a successful dentist in Manhattan while Falk (Vince) is in some unspecified international business that requires him to travel frequently. The two belatedly sit down to dinner with their spouses and kids to break the ice and get to know each other before the upcoming marriage. Falk tells a tall story about tsetse flies the size of eagles and the incredulous Arkin questions him about these flies “with beaks” that carry off children.

After the guests leave Sheldon tells his family the wedding is off, however they manage to calm him down. The next day, however, Vince shows up at Shelly’s office and asks him to do a “favor” which implicates him in a whole series of events including a lot of unexpected danger and terribly funny situations. When Shelly tries to back out of his involvement Vince tells him he is a party to a felony and he will have to do ten years or so when Vince turns him in to the feds - you see, Vince is a CIA agent.

Shelly decides to play ball when he finds all sorts of federal police cars waiting for him when he tries to go home. There are some really hilarious car chases including one where Shelly pulls into a quickie paint shop to hide and inadvertently gets a flame job put on his BMW!

The team of Falk and Arkin really make for some hilarity with the timid Arkin’s patented stone-faced delivery of his increasingly hysterical lines and the unpredictable Falk’s reasonable, matter-of-fact, earnest delivery of some outrageous one-liners while doing anything from driving a getaway car to fighting a gun battle to evading a firing squad. The comic patter never misfires even at the frenetic pace of the action, which by the way is also very funny.

Arlene Golonka, Ed Begley, Jr., and Richard Lembeck round out the cast with good performances all. For a bonus, add to the mix a pair of non-English speaking Chinese flight attendants (James Hong and Danny Kwan) and Richard Libertini as an over-the-top Caribbean dictator with a tacky art collection and The In-Laws is a non-stop laugh riot!

All’s well that ends well and Vince and Shelly manage to scam a cool $5 million apiece out of a CIA sting operation against the Latin American dictator and still make it home for the kid’s wedding Sunday.

The unpredictable script is by Alan Bergman, who also wrote Blazing Saddles. Direction is by Arthur Hiller and is able to make the car chases and other activities thrilling and funny at the same time because of the able photography by David M. Walsh which keeps the viewer square in the middle of the action. Score by John Morris is well done, also.

The In-Laws is a sparkling comedy that will surprise you. Four stars.