THE HEARTBREAK KID
. . . Of The Achy, Break-y Kind -- And Offensively So
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "The Heartbreak Kid"
By Omar P.L. Moore/October 5, 2007
Will the real wife please stand up (and stop laughing)? Ben Stiller as
Eddie, with Malin Akerman as Lila, but he is more than happy with Michelle
Monaghan (right), as Miranda. (Photo: Zade Rosenthal/Dreamworks Pictures)
Billy Ray Cyrus had a smash "crossover" hit with the song "Achy
Breaky Heart" several years ago, a catchy (some would say corny) tune that had
people singing or humming along when the need arose. In contrast, the
latest Bobby & Peter Farrelly movie, "The Heartbreak Kid" (in theaters across
North America today), plays two hours of very sour notes, running around in
circles, desperately chasing its own celluloid tail for laughs. And while
there are a few laughs and occasional entertainment (for all of one or two
minutes), the Farrelly Brothers' "comedy" is a long, tired exercise routine,
repeatedly going for the same punch line, the same laugh line, the same easy
targets and stereotypes to make "fun" of (Mexicans, American southerners, the
elderly, the demanding wife, obese women, blonde-haired women, gays) -- and
fails miserably on all counts.
Ben Stiller is Eddie, a sporting goods store owner in San Francisco who has the
same kind of luck with women that Chuck (played by Dane Cook) had in last
month's disastrous "Good Luck Chuck", except Eddie isn't necessarily a good luck
charm for women as much as he is a bad luck charm for himself. He has a
cantankerous dad (real-life dad Jerry Stiller) who is foul-mouthed and blunt in
the same way Alan Arkin's Oscar-winning Grandpa was in last year's "Little Miss
Sunshine". Eddie has an ex-fiance who has shacked up with his best friend
Mac (Rob Corddry) and Eddie doesn't know from which direction love will come
next. He has a random encounter with Lila (Malin Akerman) on Hyde Street
in San Francisco (and the aforementioned street name is not an accident where
Lila is concerned -- the intersecting street on which they meet should have been
renamed Jekyll.) In the time it takes to say "hocus pocus", the lovelorn
Eddie and the desperate Lila have tied the knot.
"The Heartbreak Kid" also takes place in Cabo, Mexico, and while the locales are
good, the content is ugly. (Capitalize that "u".) Uncle Tito (Carlos
Mencia) is a stereotypical and racist view of a Mexican -- and like Eddie
Murphy's characters in the dreaded "Norbit", Tito is an incarnation that appeals
to the fears of those in the audience who feel comfortable laughing away their
own racist prejudices with 400 of their closest strangers in a movie theater
auditorium. Of course, by the time Eddie realizes that marrying Lila has
been a big mistake, he has already fallen for Miranda (Michelle Monaghan of "M:i:III"),
a woman so beautiful, smart and charismatic that she still manages to be
single(!), on a family reunion and renewal of marriage vows in Cabo.
Having said that, almost all the characters in the film are shallow and
brainless, and Ms. Akerman plays the one-note nutcase (with not even a hint of
ambiguity or a shred of intrigue, even in a lame-brained comedy -- so why
is it that Eddie still isn't smart enough to realize that Lila is wrong
until it is too late?) Strangely enough, Eddie confides to Mac that he
doesn't want to rush into anything -- but being lonely will inevitably do that
to you. Even so, "The Heartbreak Kid" is an exhausting heartbreak, one
where the viewer is pained not at the experiences of Eddie, Lila and Miranda,
but at the time that the viewer is wasting on such a tasteless exercise.
(Unless you're a 15-year-old, no, 17-year-old male.)
A Farrelly Brothers movie wouldn't be complete without the customary bodily
fluid expulsion, and some in the audience will be "riveted" to watch fluids
flowing from one of the participants in this wretched affair. At this
point, a few questions beg to be asked: did the Farrellys take a vacation when
filming this movie? When co-writing it? Did they take two vacations?
More? They have cultivated much fresher, funnier and more interesting
material ("There's Something About Mary" and "Shallow Hal"), but with
"Heartbreak" they appear to have been lazy and out of ideas. Granted, they
wrote the film with three other screenwriters, Scot Armstrong and Leslie Dixon
(with Kevin Barnett as part of the Farrelly writing team), but all five of them
have one thing in common: they have made a poisonous hash brown out of Bruce Jay
Friedman's short story "A Change Of Plan", from which Neil Simon's 1972
screenplay was devised. Mr. Simon has been a prolific screenwriter and
playwright; and it is a shame that the Brothers Farrelly didn't pay him the
proper respect.
"The Heartbreak Kid" will be a heartbreaking waste of your two hours.
Unlike the film's ad campaign, love doesn't hurt, but watching this film
will, even if you'll get a laugh or three out of it.
"The Heartbreak Kid" is rated R (for racist?) by the Motion Picture
Association of America, for strong sexual content, crude humor and language.
The film's duration is one hour and 55 minutes (but why??)
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2007. All Rights
Reserved.