Meet the Fockers

Album Review

With songs and a small score by Randy Newman, as well as tracks by Canned Heat and Tim Hardin, Meet the Fockers is a short, often perfunctory-feeling soundtrack. Indeed, the soundtrack to the movie's predecessor, Meet the Parents — which also featured songs and a score by Newman — had one-and-a-half times as many tracks on it. More disappointing is that what is here feels scattered and deflated. Newman's songs, "We're Gonna Get Married" and "Crazy 'Bout My Baby," are breezy and humorous enough, but aren't all that developed. His score fares better, but cartoony cues like "Baby and Me" and "Jack" still feel more serviceable than inspired. The film's theme, which mixes tiptoeing pizzicato strings with wacky brass and saccharine flutes, is, for better or worse, an accurate portrayal of Meet the Fockers' mix of broad humor and sentimentality. "Suspicious Mind" also works well, managing to sound tense, funny, and smart. Though the soundtrack includes only a handful of pop songs, Canned Heat's "Going Up the Country" and Tim Hardin's "If I Were a Carpenter" evoke the hippie roots of the Focker family. A pair of dubby tracks by HeadBone, "Wilderness (Dub)" and "Dancing," round out the album. Die-hard Meet the Fockers fans might need this soundtrack, but it probably won't satisfy anyone else.