I skipped this one when it was in the theaters because of all the bad reviews. It was on tv recently and I watched, thinking it might give a different perspective of the original. I'm not a Stiller fan, but loved Something About Mary, so I had hope. I also love Neil Simon's brilliant work, but the original Heartbreak Kid (which in fairness was advertised as a "dark comedy", and indeed it was) I found to be unfunny and oddly disturbing. In the original, for those who haven't seen it, the character of Lila is a sweet Jewish girl whose only faults are she can't sing on key, she's a messy eater, and she constantly asks her new husband (named Lenny here) if he thinks the sex is good. She obviously adores and trusts him and is totally clueless that he's seeing someone else while she's stranded in their hotel room with her sunburn. When she's finally able to go out again, he tells her he wants out of the marriage over dinner at a restaurant she had been wanting to go to, which was really sad and painful to watch, frankly. Then a bus is heading up the highway and you know she's on it, never to be seen again in the film. Fast-forward to the end, and he marries the other girl in spite of the fact that her father hates him. She looks quite happy at their wedding reception, but he has that look like he had when he began to lose interest in Lila and the original film ends there, but you know without it being said that the new wife will suffer the same fate as the first. Both women in the 1972 version are the sympathetic characters and Lenny proves to be just a schmuck who only wants something until he actually gets it. The film was a great success, with a lot of nominations and two actors receiving awards, and the acting was brilliant. I was hoping in this version the Farrelly brothers would lend some actual comedy to the story, but for me it didn't happen, and I have to agree with most of those bad reviews. Someone who's never seen the original would obviously have a different perspective and might actually enjoy this film, but I didn't.

You will be ashamed of me, but as a man with an eclectic taste for films, every now and then, I must take in a guilty pleasure. The Heartbreak Kid is a forgotten Farrelly Bros. gross-out comedy. Understandably, audiences and critics thought it was a bit much. Critics lambasted it for being mean-spirited. Compared to There's Something About Mary, I admit, there is no shred of sweetness in any of the characters here. They are all despicable. Stiller's character especially. A low-life, cheating, scumbag if there ever was one. The film wants you to root for him... in finding the sexier, saner woman over Stiller's troubled newlywed. Everything about that is wrong, wrong, wrong. But that's the joke. The Heartbreak Kid thrives on cringe humor. I'd say, in a similar vein to Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's funny, particularly because the situation is so horrible. Then you pair it up with the endless gross-out humor that the Farrelly's are famous for, but this time, on steroids. Jokes about pubic hair, urine, devastating sunburns, jellyfish attacks and things that should never be up someone's nose. The traveling mariachi band particularity had me rolling. It all works, except for one joke with a Donkey that genuinely went way too far. The Heartbreak Kid is not great cinema. It's trash. But it's funny trash and that's better than nothing.

The Heartbreak Kid had some good moments and interest that brought the film alive in the first half only to be let down badly in the second half. Hence the 5/10 rating. Just when we thought a twist was in the air and Ben Stiller's character would find love in this unusual story it took a dive for the worst and contained silly moments. It went beyond funny and plain stupid. A lot of the time a bit of care and good direction is needed for these comedies to fly, otherwise they collapse on themselves. Watching the second half of this film you get the impression that the producers let the film finish and direct itself. Despite its flaws it showcases good performances from Michelle Monaghan and Ben Stiller.

Well, maybe in private life, god bless him. He's a comedic actor, and therefore I want to see him get the sh*t. I want to see him get his nads caught in a zipper on his prom date with his dream girl whilst wearing dental braces in his pimply face, to name one scene that comes to mind. I don't want to have to witness him date the two cutest girls on face of the earth for 90 minutes. That would maybe be a romantic date movie, but not a comedy. Do I really have to spell this out the Farrelly brothers, the innovators of the comedic genre in the 1990ies? How on earth could it go all so wrong? One of my suspicion: Too many writers. Then: Let them do comedy, for Pete's sakes! Not romance. Then: The whole movie is visually way to perfect for a comedy. In the DVD commentary, the Farrelly brothers claim that this is their best-looking movie to date. Only too true, and part of the problem. I felt like I was watching a commercial by the Mexican tourism board. (Although it's an interesting point that while "There's Something ..." idealized Miami, it was still funny. But then the plot didn't involve a honeymoon.) Next: Crude can be funny. But crude must not be funny. Crude can be just crude. I'll just say "C*ck me", queefs and donkeyrape. Again, who am I telling this to? Next, this was the first movie that made me feel that the Farrellys are just out of touch. If accused of being gay, you don't fervently deny it. It's OK for women to fart or get sunburns. "Bad music taste" and a dodgy nasal septum don't qualify as divorce reasons.A short sequence of the movie where the Farrelly manage to rekindle their own style is where Ben Stiller escapes from Mexico. So they still have it in them. Let's all just pray that they don't't attempt to do romance anymore.