Review of The Heartbreak Kid (2007) by Gabriel A — 26 May 2017

Look, first things first. I remember seeing parts of this movie one time on CABLE television. Not paid cable like HBO, Showtime or Starz. I mean like TBS, TNT or USA-type cable tv. Like how does this movie air over regular cable? Not that I give a rat's ass whether it does or not.

What I mean by that is the fact that this is very raunchy R-rated comedy. On cable TV, they have to cut out all the juicy, R-rated bits because the FCC would probably bust their ass or something. That means no cursing, no sex, no nudity and no pissing on someone's back and no pubic hairs.

If you guessed that this film has all five of those, then you would be correct. The film's entire essence would be completely negated by having it air in an extremely edited format (for both content and time, since the film runs almost two hours).

Not that I think the film is much better as it is honestly. I don't know where to begin. I've enjoyed my fair share of raunchy comedies throughout the years. But I've always subscribed to, what might be to some, a very limited idea of what I like this genre to be.

I like raunchy comedies when they're well-written and cast with talented actors. But another thing I like is for the film to actually have characters. Say what you will about 21 Jump Street (and its sequels) but the leads are two very distinct people and there's actually some character progression in both of those films.

It's not like it's super serious or complex, but they make the effort to make sure that the characters show growth as the film moves along. When you have a movie that relies just on the raunch, with nothing else, that's when I have problems.

And it wouldn't be such a big problem is the raunchy comedy was at least funny, which it isn't. That's actually wrong, there's some scenes here and there that made me laugh, but the rest just ends up feeling like a repeat of everything that the Farrelly brother had done prior to this point.

I will say that the movie is fairly decent for its first stretch, like with Edward and Lila meeting and their relationship. I like this concept, while not unique, of Edward marrying this woman, to keep her from leaving for a job that'll take her away from home for 2 years, coming to the realization that she is a pretty damn annoying person to be around with.

Again, not unique, but I like it. And there's some good scenes with Lila tormenting Edward during their honeymoon. But the problem comes in the fact that, to me, there's not enough of these scenes of Lila tormenting Edward.

Lila spends about 75% of the movie cooped up in her hotel room. Edward is out and about socializing with this woman (whom he really has a connection with) and her family. This made it a little difficult for me to buy the whole 'I can't be married to this woman, we're so incompatible' angle.

They're certainly incompatible, but they're not incomparable to the point where it's completely irreparable. And that's what would have made the budding romance between Edward and Miranda a little more believable.

Ben Stiller and Michelle Monaghan have great chemistry together, they were completely natural with one another, which is why I can buy into them as a couple, it was nothing to do with the actual scripting of Ed's and Lila's relationship.

Maybe my tolerance level is too high, but Lila wasn't as annoying as, say, Rob Schneider is in every movie he appears. Though those are two very different styles of annoying. I hate Rob and I wish he'd go away and never appeared in a movie ever again.

He can still work behind the camera, just not in front of it. He's awful and I want to punch him in the dick. Hell, I know how Edward's annoyance at Lila would be more realistic, cast Rob Schneider as Lila instead of Malin Akerman.

Do this and Lila would be a more despised villain than Hannibal Lecter. Moving on though, the casting is strong. There's a lot of really talented comedic actors in this movie and they do give it their best shot.

But I just don't think the film is built for the long haul. And that's another thing, there's no way this movie should have gone close to two hours. It just doesn't have enough interesting comedic ideas to sustain itself for that long.

They needed to keep this short and sweet, like 90-95 minutes tops. I'm certain they could have sped up the introductory period a little bit. And there's some other pieces that you can trim from here and there, so it's not possible.

If this film was shorter, the rating would be slightly higher (I wouldn't go past 2.5 stars). This is certainly watchable, I got through it just fine. I wasn't pulling my hair out in anger or anything, but it's not effective as either a rom-com or a raunch-com.

A good cast can't make up for the deficiencies evident in the script. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's only a slightly below average movie. I've seen worse. Movies come and go and this will be one of that that I forget about a week from now.