The Heartbreak Kid - DVD Review

The Heartbreak Kid Rated: R for language.
Runtime: 93 mins.
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Writer: Dave Kajganich (screenplay); Jack Finney (novel)
Cast: Nicole Kidman; Daniel Craig; Jeremy Northam.
Tagline: Do not trust anyone. Do not show emotion. Do not fall asleep.
Genre: Action / Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi
Memorable Quote: "We'll watch over each other, make sure we don't fall asleep." ...more memorable quotes
Release Date: August 17, 2007

Expect to struggle, along with Elaine May and Neil Simon (no doubt), to forgive this 2007 comedic transgression because we and their legacies deserve better. These two comedic titans conspired to bring us the original movie The Heartbreak Kid (1972) May directed and Simon wrote the screenplay, after adapting Bruce Jay Friedman's short story. That movie, with adept co-stars Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd, amusingly captures irrepressible Jewish male angst and falling in impractical love. The current version drops into the prickly directorial hands of the Farrelly brothers (Fever Pitch) once again reinforcing the notion that comedy necessitates flair, not impudence.

Ben Stiller (Night at the Museum) is Eddie Cantrow, a 40-year-old bachelor who owns a sporting goods store. Following the wedding of his ex-fiancÃ© of five years, he gets vulgar counsel about getting on with life and women, from both his 77-year-old dad (Jerry Stiller, Ben's father in real life) and browbeaten married friend Mac (Rob Corddry, Blades of Glory). With God (or the devil?) smiling upon him, Eddie meets Lila (Malin Akerman, The Brothers Solomon) when he intervenes as her purse is snatched (on Valentine's Day contrived? you bet). Within weeks the two get married and honeymoon at a Mexico resort. There, Eddie rapidly realizes thanks to Lila s irritating singing with the car radio, butchering of English (Inhabitate is not a word ), preference for masochist sex, revealed unemployment, etc. that he may have jumped a tad too quickly into marriage. Following a catastrophic sunburn, Lila stays hidden in their hotel suite. This leaves Eddie time to court the beautiful, and sports loving, vacationing Miranda (Michelle Monaghan, Mission: Impossible III). Eddie gets more than he bargained for, though, when he realizes he is falling into and out of love... all while still honeymooning.

Making his second Farrelly brothers turn (There's Something About Mary, 1998), Ben Stiller perpetuates his Everyman persona by appearing to be a bumbling yet reasonable guy who, as events unfold, proves as morally bankrupt as everyone else in his life. With this, their 9th directorial effort, I have come to expect coarse humor wrapped in the Farrelly brothers unconventional (and now mechanical) boy gets-loses-gets girl package. In The Heartbreak Kid, the brothers cast an intensified spotlight on sophomoric behavior love hurts, they reiterate and so does comedy when bungled with such fruitless ribaldry.

DVD Details:

Screen formats: Widescreen Anamorphic 1.85:1

Subtitles: English; French; Spanish

Language and Sound: English: Dolby Digital 5.1; French: Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1

Other Features: Color; interactive menus; scene access; deleted scenes; director's commentary; bloopers.

* Commentary - Feature-length audio commentary by The Farrelly Brothers.
* Featurettes
o "The Farrelly Brothers in the French Tradition" (16:33)
o "Ben & Jerry" (04:59)
o "Heartbreak Halloween" (03:23)
o "The Egg Toss" (08:03)
* Gag Reel (04:00)
* Deleted Scenes - 6 scenes that didn't make the final cut.
* Trailers and Previews

Number of discs: - 1- Keepcase Packaging