Film Review--The Heartbreak Kid

This week we take a look at The Heartbreak Kid (R). In this remake of the Neil Simon-penned 1972 movie, Ben Stiller plays a man who rushes into marriage, only to fall in love with someone else on his honeymoon. Michelle Monaghan, Jerry Stiller, Rob Corddry, Malin Akerman and Carlos Mencia costar. Bobby and Peter Farrelly direct.

Ryan: Fans hoping that a re-teaming of Stiller and the Farrelly Brothers would produce another comedic classic—like 1998's There's Something About Mary—are going to be extremely disappointed. The Heartbreak Kid is quite frankly not a very good movie. There's a few funny moments--mainly some one-liners delivered by Stiller's dad, Jerry--but unfortunately for the film those funny moments are few and far between. One could comfortably make the case that this is the Farrelly Brothers' most lackluster cinematic effort.

Andy: In spite of the 1972 source material, The Heartbreak Kid follows many standard tricks of a Farrelly brothers movie. There is usually a character with some sort of gross / funny physical ailment. Here it is a deviated septum and a bad sunburn. Of course characters are in uncomfortable, dramatically ironic situations where the audience knows what's going on, but the characters are oblivious. And for some reason, there's usually a roadtrip. In The Heartbreak Kid they head down to Cabo for most of the action. This formula actually works pretty well, but it does feel a bit stale.

Ryan: There's a specific scene in The Heartbreak Kid that epitomizes the shortcomings of the movie. Stiller and Akerman are road tripping to Cabo while singing to Bruce Springsteen's, “Rosalita.” This is a good start to the scene. Regrettably the scene quickly disintegrates with Akerman's character annoyingly singing to a whole host of songs, while Stiller's character has this look of what-did-I-get-myself-into. I had modest hopes of that scene working (after all it started on the right track) but it didn't. Similarly I had hopes of the film succeeding (the recipe for success was there) but it didn't either. Additionally I shared Stiller's look of disbelief in that I couldn't fathom at how bad the movie was becoming and ultimately ended up being.

Andy: It may be just about time for Ben Stiller to move on. It's been almost ten years since the Farrelly Brothers gave Stiller his big, secondary breakthrough with There's Something About Mary. In the decade that's followed, he's been playing slightly different versions of the
same character in a series of comedies, each one less amusing than the one before it (Zoolander, Dodgeball, etc.). These are not bad movies, for the most part, but Stiller has the talent to do something else. And if he keeps making these slightly above average comedies, the legacy of some of his truly funny movies will be damaged.

Ryan: The Farrelly Brothers are not kicking on all cylinders in this movie and neither is Ben Stiller. Stiller is the master of the bumbling charming everyman-type role. As Andy alluded too, Stiller's pulled it off countless of times. But that's part of the problem. Moviegoers have seen this particular performance from Stiller and they've seen him do it better. I won't say he phoned in the performance but its obvious he's going through the motions in several of the scenes. It's safe to say that Stiller had to have an inkling that the magic with the Farrelly Brothers is over. Final grade: D+.


Andy: The Heartbreak Kid is a rated-R comedy. Usually that's a good thing, as it allows more comedic freedom, and, as the recent success of Judd Apatow films has illustrated, it can add a degree of realism to a comedy. This film uses it's R rating for a few well timed curses, a few
useless curses, and a couple of completely unnecessary gags that seemed to be put in just to ensure good use of the R rating. There are some good moments to the movie, but it could have been just as funny rated PG-13. All in all The Heartbreak Kid is far from a comedic classic but it has its moments of hilarity. Final grade: B-.