Rent Flirting with Disaster (1996)

Dad Jokes - Flirting with Disaster review by Steve

So-so big screen sitcom which might have been better done as a tv series, as these things normally are. Typically, all the characters are stereotypes, with Ben Stiller as a neurotic Jewish father who goes on the road to find his real parents, having been adopted at birth.

So he takes along his indifferent wife (Patricia Arquette), a sexy, available research student (Téa Leoni) and his new baby boy... but the adoption agency have their data scrambled so they encounter various diverse dead ends, leading to unsubtle, door-slamming farce.

These are familiar situations, like the frustrated dad bumping into the psych-grad in her lingerie... still, she is pretty hot. The entourage even picks up some gay cops. The cast is so stoked, it seems possible the camera will pull back and reveal we're watching am-dram...

The old-time stars are best on show, with George Segal and Mary Tyler Moore as the highly strung adopters and especially Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin as the ultra-liberal biological parents. But if ever it pushed boundaries, now it's only the stereotypes which may offend.