Directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly are back again with their remake of the 1972 comedy The Heartbreak Kid. They are hoping to erase the bad memories of 2005’s Fever Pitch and return to their more successful days, documented in the 1998 surprise hit There’s Something About Mary.
The brothers even cast Ben Stiller (more recently from Night at the Museum) in the lead role. Upon viewing Heartbreak (DreamWorks), one might say that they succeed-kind of-falling somewhere in between the two aforementioned films.
Heartbreak deals with 40-year-old Edward Cantrow (Stiller) who is still single and can’t seem to find the right woman.
He then meets the beautiful Lila (Malin Akerman, The Brothers Solomon). Everything seems to be going great until she is told she will have to move to Germany for her job, and the only way to avoid the transition would be for her to be married.
Eddie, with some persuading from his father Doc (played by Stiller’s real-life dad, Jerry Stiller) and best friend Mac (Rob Corddry, TV’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”) decides to take the plunge and get married.
Unfortunately, as soon as Cantrow marries Lila, he starts to realize that he might have made the decision a little too quickly.
When he meets the down-to-earth, mentally stable Miranda (Michelle Monaghan, M:I:III) on his honeymoon, he falls for her but can’t seem to break it to her that he is a newlywed.
The story, which may have been original in 1972, is terribly clich?-ridden and overdone by today’s standards, but the movie delivers some decent laughs, many of which are of a raunchy nature.
Both Akerman and Monaghan play their parts well, with the former providing many of the movie’s mindless laughs and the latter providing the charm. Jerry Stiller, as Eddie’s perverted father, steals scenes and, provides the most consistent source of comedy.
Ben Stiller, on the other hand, plays a role audiences may be all too familiar with, as a neurotic and uncertain guy who cannot seem to do the right thing. Though he has this role down, his character is largely unlikable and seems to only make things worse by not trying to hurt anyone.
The film’s one unquestionably weak point is Carlos Mencia (Comedy Central’s “Mind of Mencia”), making his big screen debut. Mencia plays Uncle Tito, and he has one of the fakest-looking mustaches in cinematic history; one can only hope that this was intentional.
Mencia acts as though he is doing a skit on his show, as opposed to playing a character in a movie; and, whenever he is on the screen, all laughs come to an abrupt and rather unfortunate halt.
When push comes to shove, Heartbreak is a movie worth watching for some decent laughs, and it is a cut above several of the comedies recently put into release-save the ultra-funny Superbad.
It may not compare to There’s Something About Mary, but it gives hope that there is still some life left in the Farrelly Brothers’ directorial career. The film can get a little slow at times, and understandably so with a runtime near the two-hour mark, but it never completely runs out of steam.
Heartbreak is a viable option for someone looking for a few laughs at the theaters.
