The Washington Post By Ann Hornaday
Is there an actor alive who can make discomfort as hilarious as Albert Brooks?
Woody Allen comes to mind, and indeed Brooks has often been called Allen’s West Coast obverse. But the comparison doesn’t do justice to Brooks as the original that he is. Happily, Brooks takes center stage in “The In-Laws,” a surprisingly sprightly remake of the 1979 movie starring Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. Here, Michael Douglas takes on Falk’s role of the high-flying undercover agent, but in the updated version Douglas is mostly a slick, loquacious foil for Brooks’s pained comedy, which gets only funnier as the film gets busier. As an anxious Everyman caught in a whirlwind of international intrigue and ever-escalating action, Brooks is a quietly molten core of hapless, and helplessly funny, midlife angst.
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