The Heartbreak Kid DVD Review
Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 01.02.2008
It seems Farrelly Bros. comedy does not get better with age.
The Heartbreak Kid
Directed By: Peter and Bobby Farrelly Written By: Scot Armstrong, Leslie Dixon, Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly, and Kevin Barnett; Based on the 1972 movie written by Neil Simon Runtime: 115 min.
Rated R for strong sexual content, crude humor, and language.
Eddie Cantrow: Ben Stiller Miranda: Michelle Monaghan Doc Cantrow: Jerry Stiller Lila: Malin Akerman Uncle Tito: Carlos Mencia Mac: Rob Corddry
The Movie
The Heartbreak Kid was originally a 1972 comedy starring Charles Grodin, in which a Jewish guy on his honeymoon with his new bride, inexplicably falls for the blonde bombshell, Cybill Shepherd. The movie was written by renowned playwright, Neil Simon. Nearly 35 years later, the writing/directing team The Brothers Farrelly, decided to remake the movie, but this time change it around. They felt it was wrong that Grodin gets married and then "trades up" as it were to the hot blonde. So they decided for their remake, the Jewish guy will marry the hot blonde first, and then fall for a more traditional, normal type of girl.
The Bros. Farrelly came onto the scene in 1994 with Dumb and Dumber and from there revolutionized the gross-out, low-brow, irreverent comedy movie for the 1990's. They peaked in 1998 with Something About Mary, a huge runaway hit in 1998, the same year Godzilla was supposed to dominate and Mary even outdid that movie. It seems from there though they were never able to recapture the success of Something About Mary and they continued making silly, gross-out, low-brow comedies with mixed to incredibly disappointing results with such movies as Stuck On You, Shallow Hal, Me, Myself, And Irene, Fever Pitch, and of course the mega bomb that was Osmosis Jones.
The Heartbreak Kid reunites the Farrelly Bros. with their most successful leading man in Ben Stiller from Something About Mary. For the Farrelly remake, Stiller plays the Grodin role, the middle-aged Eddie Cantrow. Eddie owns a sporting goods store in San Francisco, and is somewhat disappointed from his lacking love life, and he's constantly prodded by his potty-mouthed dad, Doc (Ben Stiller's own dad Jerry Stiller) and his best friend, Mac (Corddry). The real kicker comes after seeing his long time fianceé getting married to another man.
One day Eddie fails in helping a hot blonde woman getting seemingly mugged. Her name is Lila (Akerman). And so, very quickly they start dating and fall in love. Lila's a fun and cute girl, and Eddie really likes her. Unfortunately, Lila's work as an environmental researcher requires she move to Germany for two years. Faced with a dilemna, and under even more pressure at the threat of being lonely forever, Eddie decides to take the plunge and just marries Lila. And just like Jerry "The King" Lawler says, "A man never knows true happiness until he's married . . . and then it's too late." Eddie didn't really take time to get to know Lila, and it turns out she's an absolute nut case. She doesn't have a real job or source of income since she's a volunteer as a researcher. The person that was apparently mugging her was just trying to get back the wallet that Lila stole from him. And she's a scary nympho in bed.
So as they begin their honeymoon in their deluxe Cabo, Mexico resort, Eddie knows he's really stepped in it. But it's at the Cabo resort he meets the lovely, down to earth southern, suburban Miranda (Monaghan). They meet a bit awkwardly when Miranda and her cousin see Eddie delivering a package from Mac to the resort concierge, Uncle Tito (Mencia). The package contains a porn vid and is from Mac to Tito. Later after Lila is incapacitated from a terrible sunburn attained from refusing to wear strong sunblock on the beach, Eddie hits it off great with Miranda and her family. And could this be real love between Eddie and Miranda this time?!
Ten years ago I loved movies like Something About Mary. I would see just about anything starring Ben Stiller around that time. In this movie he plays his usual character -- the awkward Jewish guy that has an extreme lack of tact and seems to accidentally say the wrong thing at every opportunity, but is actually really sweet, gets the girl, yadda yadda yadda. Ben Stiller with Something About Mary and Meet The Parents really just seemed to give a voice to the romantically awkward Jewish youth that I really appreciate. But these days I feel he's really played this character into the ground, and it just feels lacking and unaffecting at this point. The other character he typically plays is his more wacky, sketch type of characters in Zoolander, Dodgeball, Starsky and Hutch, etc. This is more the former.
Malin Akerman, its clear in the first act of the movie they want us to really like her and then when we meet Monaghan after Lila goes psycho, we are to turn for the Monaghan flag instead. Akerman doesn't really seem to have any natural comic timing besides cursing a lot and embracing the Farrelly Bros. gross material. Her being a scary freak in bed does absolutely nothing for me. I mean I like Monaghan a lot and I just kept thinking the movie would be more interesting if the movie was simply about Eddie not being on his honeymoon but having to get through Miranda's evil cousin and old boyfriend Cal in order to court her.
This is a type of movie that is really begging for a standout or break-out performance, or some actor to really steal the show, and it simply lacks that. I have nothing against Mencia like some people, but he just isn't really funny here, despite wearing a ridiculous taped on 'stache. The other supporting players aren't particularly funny either. They try and they aren't terrible, the movie just never really hits it off or makes any real magic with the performers.
Other than that, I simply can't buy that Eddie has dated Lila, even for six weeks, and doesn't know that A) she doesn't really have a paying job, and B) she has a deviated septum and snorts liquid through her nose. I know it's a comedy and all, but the scenario is a little hard to buy into.
Technical Specs
The movie is presented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. The original English language and audio track is in 5.1 surround sound. Language tracks in French and Spanish are also included in 5.1 surround sound as well. Optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles are also included. The picture transfer for the movie does look very strong and sharp.
The Extras
OK let's not make any bones about it. This movie did not do very well. So I simply wish the extras maybe would discuss that some. Judging from the audio commentary for the movie by Peter and Bobby Farrelly they didn't record the commentary recently and did so before the movie was released. I get the feeling from the Farrelly Bros. that maybe they have a little too much fun making these movies and should focus more on making the movie work rather than casting their friends, their relatives, and their friends' relatives throughout the film as well as "smoking bones" while re-writing the script. The Farrelly's discuss a lot of the changes they made with regards to the original movie. They also talk about Malin Akerman's leading lady and her remarkable resemblance to their female lead from Something About Mary, Cameron Diaz. According to the Farrelly's, Hitchcock liked to cast similar blondes a lot so why can't they? Alright well . . . I mean . . . c'mon . . . a little bit of a joke and all, but likening yourselves to Alfred Hitchcock?
The extras also include a Gag Reel with the flubs and mistakes from the film and a group of Deleted Scenes left on the cutting room floor. Some of these are extensions on existing scenes. In one, Miranda's old fiancé, Cal, parachutes down to the beach while Eddie is having dinner with Miranda and Miranda's family. Cal proposes to Miranda before being promptly rejected. In another scene Eddie plays some delirious messages from Lila on his phone to Doc, when Doc suggests Eddie get back together with her. Most of these just dragged the scenes on and weren't that funny, unfortunately the rest of the movie isn't that funny either.
The Heartbreak Halloween is a little featurette that talks about the costume party held on the set by the crew members. All the crew members had a little bit of time to make their own costume from scratch. Ultimately, it was Peter Farrelly -- sporting a Jennifer Beals in Flashdance costume -- who gained the victory.
The Egg Toss goes over the Farrelly created game of egg tossing, in which cast and crew members would participate in between takes. Bobby talks about how the crew would want to just wrap things up quickly instead of working more just to get back to the egg tossing game. Well maybe that wasn't the best of ideas, possibly a little ill-advised.
The Farrelly Brothers In The French Tradition talk about their upbringing and development in the world of writing and directing. Peter and Bobby reflect on their earlier days drying to develop a sunspot towel, and their failed paper route when they were kids. They also talk about their writing process together, and how they broke into the business with really no experience at all and were never fired. The featurette runs about 16 minutes, and the stories about the early days of the Farrelly's are pretty interesting. Its ironic though at the end of the featurette where they talk about "returning to the R-rated comedy" and going back to basics like Something About Mary. Just interesting since the movie really didn't get the reaction they were hoping for, and they can't really respond to that in featurettes such as this. I feel that my definiton of "ground-breaking" comedy is very different from the Farrelly version.
The 411: Today it feels like The Farrelly Bros. material has become dated and old hat of all things. Judd Apatow and his crew now seem to carry the torch with irreverent, R-rated comedies, and IMHO with much stronger results. But we'll see if that changes in years to come.
