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Title: The Heartbreak Kid
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The catchphrase being used to sell “The Heartbreak Kid” in all the commercials is "Love Blows." I want to add "so does this movie." "The Heartbreak Kid" was a film I wanted to enjoy, yet it broke my heart every stupid minute it went on. It's hard to believe that Peter and Bobby Farrely, the dynamic team of two brothers that brought us such vulgar classics as “There’s Something About Mary,” “Stuck on You,” and “Dumb and Dumber,” directed this piece of crap. This is the only movie I think I'll ever see where the least offensive joke involves the main character being urinated on his back by his pyscho wife. Starring in the movie is Ben Stiller, who seems to be the go-to guy when you need a likable loser. Though all the men have achieved much success in their careers doing what they do, I must confess that their acts are getting old. I’ve seen Ben Stiller play one likable loser after another, a guy who’s made his lack of control so profitable, he even let himself get slapped around by a monkey in "Night At The Museum."
I'm at the point where I just want him to slap back. In “The Heartbreak Kid” he gets the worst luck he’s ever gotten as Eddie, a forty-something single man who's never been married, and from the looks of things he won’t be anytime soon. His bad luck with women is so famous, that he’s even openly mocked by the wedding coordinator and then the bride herself. Even his father (played by Stiller's real life pop Jerry Stiller) expresses concerns that Eddie will spend so much time looking for the right girl, that eventually he'll wind up alone. But Eddie's luck changes when he meets Lila (Malin Akerman), who he takes an immediate liking to and marries after six weeks. The problem is, once he marries Lila she becomes a sadistic psychopath that drains any joy the movie might have had right out of the film.
Now I like to think I’m being fair when I watch comedies and acknowledge that most comedies contain things that are usually a little mean spirited for the sake of a good laugh. However this woman is not merely mean spirited, she’s downright unpleasant. What starts as a cute date movie quickly turns into a film that has scenes too disturbing to talk about in print. A scene early on in the movie has Eddie and Lila eating at a restaurant, where Lila confesses to snorting cocain, which she admits resulted in her having a deviated septum. She then drinks soda and we watch as the soda squirts out of her nose. How hilarious. Then we have a scene where the two characters are having rough sex, where Lila constantly hits Eddie and tells him to screw her like (and this is the movies words, not mine) “a black man.” The scene that just topped the list though was a scene where (here it comes again) Eddie gets a jellyfish stuck on his back, and Lila pulls down her pants and urinates on his back.
What a charming way to spend your honeymoon. I hear that last joke is actually accurate, it's just not funny. In fact NONE of these jokes are funny OR intelligent! Just cruel and malicious. While watching this movie I started to wonder what Eddie did to deserve all this. After an hour of watching the film though I stopped wondering about Eddie and starting thinking of what I’d done to deserve this. What did I do to have to sit through this awful, awful film? I know I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, but none of them are worth having to sit through this. This is easily one of the worst movies of the year. Oh heck, why don’t I just cross of the “one of” and call it the worst movie of the year, because sitting through this movie truly was a nightmare all in itself.
I’m not even going to get into any details about the subplot involving the (supposingly) nice girl Eddie meets during his honeymoon, other then to observe that with his luck this girl will turn out to be a psychopath the second he tries to marry her too. This is one of the few times where I don’t feel like I’m writing a review more then I feel like I’m writing a public service announcement. This movie is so bad it makes you afraid to go to the theaters. And indeed you should not see this movie. You should especially take extra care to not take a spouse to see this movie. Doing so may qualify on grounds for a divorce.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -