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The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

The Heartbreak Kid
"I think if a better looking script happened to come along right now, I'd jump ship."
Watch The Trailer!

Directed By:

Farrelly Brothers

Starring:

Ben Stiller
Malin Akerman
Michelle Monaghan
Jerry Stiller

Released By:

Dreamworks

Released In:

2007

Rated:

R

Reviewed By:

Adam Mast

Reviewed On:

Wed Oct 10th, 2007

Grade:

C-


The Heartbreak Kid is a terribly misguided updating of the 70's Charles Grodin/Elaine May/Neil Simon collaboration. In The Hearbreak Kid, Ben Stiller plays Eddie Cantrow, an unlucky in love sporting goods salesman who jumps into marriage with a woman (played by the beautiful Malin Akerman) he barely knows, simply because everyone he knows has already taken the plunge and is in eternal (depending on your beliefs) bliss. He simply feels left out and doesn't want to live a solitary life of loneliness. The gal he ultimately ends up getting hitched to winds up being a nightmare, and while on a disastrous honeymoon in Cabo, Stiller contemplates pulling the plug on the seemingly doomed relationship.

Making matters worse, he ends up developing a crush on another woman (played by Michelle Monaghan) while in Mexico. This version of The Heartbreak Kid has no subtlety and trades in the character-based laughs and easy going charm of the original for stale gross out gags and tawdry sex scenes. Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against gross out gags and tawdry sex scenes, but only if they amount to something. This latest effort from the usually dependable Farrelly Brothers doesn't amount to much. A few of the laughs work, but most fall flat. What's most disheartening is that the thing most lacking in this insipid remake (which the Farrelly's usually bring in spades is heart and charm. There's nothing engaging here, and what's more, this movie is heavily bogged down by an ugly, smarmy tone.

Akerman is quite lovely in the first act of the picture, but then she quickly degenerates into a shrill, whining annoyance, and while I suppose that's sort of the point, it was so abrupt and predictable that it did absolutely nothing for me. Like Charles Grodin, Ben Stiller plays a victim of circumstance but he isn't as likable as Grodin was. He's a bit too sarcastic. Still, in the early goings, I felt bad for Stiller's Eddie. That is until his entire persona is reversed in the final moments of the movie. Seriously, the ending of this picture is positively dreadful. There's a certain level of the Farrelly's own There's Something About Mary at play here (even Akerman bears a slight resemblance to Cameron Diaz) but again, this Heartbreak Kid is sadly witless, charmless and uncharacteristically absent comic smarts. Even a funny Jerry Stiller (Ben's real life father) can't keep this one from hitting the shitter.

I will say this though. There was one scene in The Hearbreak Kid that had me in stitches. At one point during the movie, a group of Mexicans try to sneak across the border. During this uninspired sequence, an inebriated Mexican sitting directly behind me began to laugh his balls off uncontrollably. I mean this guy was smashed. For whatever reason, he found this particular moment of the movie extremely hilarious. I don't know if he identified with what was going on on screen or if the rest of the movie was just boring to him. Whatever the case may be, his massive fit of laughter was far more hilarious than anything in the film itself. I hope the Farrelly's rebound next time out because they're capable of much better.

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