Steve Pulaski
The Heartbreak Kid is a deplorable comedy with a seriously backwards moral compass. It's billed as a romantic comedy but I'm struggling to find a romantic side to its dreadful, nihilistic comedy. It isn't enough that the film be impossibly unromantic but also completely dirty-minded and cynical to the point where liking it is above and beyond the call of a cinematic duty. This is the kind of third-rate schlock that belongs in the straight-to-DVD pile along with comedies such as Road Trip: Beer Pong. Not the film by the Farrelly brothers, two of the most prominent and respected names in comedy/gross-out comedy.Along with bearing two respectable directors, the film also has headliners such as Ben Stiller, Jerry Stiller, Michelle Monaghan, Malin Åkerman, Rob Corrdry, Carlos Mencia, and Danny McBride that it victimizes to its awfulness. Ben Stiller stars as Eddie, the owner of a sports-store, who is single and hesitant about opening up the door and starting a new relationship. One day, however, he sees a woman named Lila (Malin Åkerman) being victim to a harsh mugging. While failing to retrieve her purse, they sort of hit it off and go on to date after meeting each other once more. Lila, however, is a member of some environmental science group, and, because she's single, is offered a trip to study abroad. Even though they're only about six weeks into the relationship, Eddie goes out on a whim and proposes to Lila, throwing complete caution to the wind and the two decide to honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas. Upon marrying her, Eddie doesn't realize that marrying Lila could be the biggest mistake of his life, as she is completely obnoxious, not self-aware to the feelings of others, likes her sex a bit too rough, and has no social boundaries whatsoever. In walks Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), a simple, older woman who is on vacation with her cousins so her aunt/uncle can renew their wedding vows for the umpteenth time. After Lila gets a painful and embarrassing sunburn, Eddie completely sidelines her and favors Miranda's company, an already despicable move on his part. But as the film goes on, it's clear that Eddie's personality is predicated off of senseless actions and moves to make him in power over everyone else.A reminder: this is the man we're so supposed to call our protagonist. This schmuck is the man whom we're supposed to side and sympathize with throughout the film. The Farrellys' first fatal flaw is that they give us a lead character who is completely unconscionable and unlikable. He's mercilessly rude, as un-self aware as his wife, and always seems to know how to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. His wife, on the other hand, is no better, playing an insufferable nag who finds ways to be more and more obnoxious to the point where her very presence treads the line of being totally unrealistic. It's sad to see Stiller and Åkerman get such lowly characters in a comedy, but it's almost as bad as the Farrelly brothers failing at what they're known best for - gross- out humor. There is a line between gross-out humor and just being flat out immature and desperate and it's such a thin, easy line to cross into the latter territory that it explains why many writers/directors opt-out of it. Consider the scene where Eddie is being attacked by a jellyfish and, upon ripping it off his back, Lila pulls down her jeans, sprouts open her vagina like a Venus-fly-trap, and proceed to urinate on her husband's back to numb the pain. The scene is agonizingly awful and has no laughs to offer. It reeks of total desperation for laughs that it wouldn't be worth commenting on if it weren't for the numerous things it does wrong. It effectively makes nearly every character involved more unlikable than they already were.If we want to get really involved and lay our criticism on thick, look how this film portrays middle-aged American bachelors. They look like cold, unfeeling Neanderthals who are motivated by ego and personal pleasure. It makes commitment look like impromptu-meeting scheduling and divorce look like a five-year-old quitting a board game. It sends terrible messages to people around the world about how we Americans perceive marital bonds and serious unions. For anyone willing to disagree, just take another look at the ending of the film, which is so soulless and cheap it's hard to believe it took five writers to concoct it and all the preceding events.The Heartbreak Kid is a comedy with a bad attitude, not the kind that is so uproariously funny and foul, but the kind of bad attitude that gets you sent upstairs with no dessert. It's another entry in the ever-growing genre of "maximum antics, minimum laughter," a term I coined to identify when comedies emphasize stupidity over wit so-much-so they forget that the antics should be funny and enjoyable to watch. The Farrelly brothers are two of the biggest names in comedy, with good films like Stuck on You and There's Something About Mary under their belt, but with The Heartbreak Kid they've made one of the hardest comedies to like, let alone tolerate, and sit-through of the last decade.Starring: Ben Stiller, Jerry Stiller, Malin Åkerman, Michelle Monaghan, Carlos Mencia, Rob Corrdry, and Danny McBride. Directed by: Bob Farrelly and Peter Farrelly.
AsifZamir
This is one of those movies you can enjoy over and over. The Heartbreak Kid was remade in 2007 based on the original movie in 1972 with the same name. The remake of The Heartbreak Kid stars Ben Stiller, single Eddie who owns a sport shop. Eddie runs into Lila (Malin Akerman), whose purse gets snatched in the street. Eddie unsuccessfully tries to retrieve the purse but in turn he and Lila strike up a serious romance and Lila seems like she is perfect for him. At the announcement of a job she wants to take in Holland, Eddie looks into the matter and discovers the company policy of not relocating married employees, so; at his best friend (Rob Corrdry) and father 's (Jerry Stiller) urging, Eddie proposes and they get married. On their honeymoon, Eddie begins to feel that he made a mistake. To make matters worse, Eddie meets Miranda (Michelle Monaghan).I watched this one on the big screen (by myself as usual). - Asif Zamir
Karl Self
Well, maybe in private life, god bless him. He's a comedic actor, and therefore I want to see him get the sh*t. I want to see him get his nads caught in a zipper on his prom date with his dream girl whilst wearing dental braces in his pimply face, to name one scene that comes to mind. I don't want to have to witness him date the two cutest girls on face of the earth for 90 minutes. That would maybe be a romantic date movie, but not a comedy. Do I really have to spell this out the Farrelly brothers, the innovators of the comedic genre in the 1990ies? How on earth could it go all so wrong? One of my suspicion: Too many writers. Then: Let them do comedy, for Pete's sakes! Not romance. Then: The whole movie is visually way to perfect for a comedy. In the DVD commentary, the Farrelly brothers claim that this is their best-looking movie to date. Only too true, and part of the problem. I felt like I was watching a commercial by the Mexican tourism board. (Although it's an interesting point that while "There's Something ..." idealized Miami, it was still funny. But then the plot didn't involve a honeymoon.) Next: Crude can be funny. But crude must not be funny. Crude can be just crude. I'll just say "C*ck me", queefs and donkeyrape. Again, who am I telling this to? Next, this was the first movie that made me feel that the Farrellys are just out of touch. If accused of being gay, you don't fervently deny it. It's OK for women to fart or get sunburns. "Bad music taste" and a dodgy nasal septum don't qualify as divorce reasons.A short sequence of the movie where the Farrelly manage to rekindle their own style is where Ben Stiller escapes from Mexico. So they still have it in them. Let's all just pray that they don't't attempt to do romance anymore.
