Current Release: September 11th, 2007 | Vol. XXIV Iss. 10

Ticket

By Kevin Casteel

krcasteel@vwc.edu

Ben Stiller leads the cast in the semi-romantic, gross out comedy, “The Heartbreak Kid.” What looked to be the “typical” boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love premise, falls flat in its last ten minutes.

Eddie Cantrow ( Ben Stiller) is a 40ish single guy who lives in San Francisco. He meets the blonde Cameron Diaz look-alike, Lila (Malin Ackerman). Within the first twenty minutes of the film, Eddie and Lila fell in love, got married, and are now on their way Cabo, Mexico. Life is just perfect!

After sitting through a fabulous, hysterical montage of Lila lip synching to many different songs. Eddie and Lilia arrive to their destination. Soon Lila turns into a psychotic mess, announcing that she is a former drug junkie turned volunteer marine biologist. She is clingy, whiny, and basically the wife from Hades! After being badly sunburned by the “Mexican ozone,” Lila has to stay inside the hotel room. This gives Eddie the chance to fall in love with an exotic stranger, Miranda (Michelle Monaghan).

This movie was average for what it was. It didn’t live up to the trailers. I hardly laughed during the movie. The only times I did were during the singing montage and few catchy one-liners.

The movie attempted to be a romantic comedy disguised as a gross out comedy. It worked for “There’s Something About Mary” and “Knocked Up,” but not for this. The writing was weak, the jokes were blunt, and some of the minor characters were annoying. On top of that, it was highly offensive. The sex was minimal, however. But the sex scenes that were shown were highly graphic. Over all, the movie could have been cut fifteen minutes short.

Stiller is highly goofy, but not funny. He was charming in “Night at the Museum,” but not too much in this role. Nothing really stood out about him, and he was trying way too hard to make the audience laugh. Sometimes he is either a hit or miss in his movies, and this one, for sure, he was a miss.

For a model turned actress, Ackerman did a great job. She was what made this film. She was hysterical as Lila, and I never knew what to expect from her. Going from a cutesy, ditzy blonde chick at the start of the film to a neurotic, psychotic freak in the end, was what made her so likable. She seemed to be having fun with her role which made her so likable. I started to feel sorry for her character when Ben Stiller started to cheat on her.

Monaghan stood out as Miranda, because her character seemed so real and innocent. Miranda was the realest of the characters, the one who was the closest to actual reality. She had this steamy, flirty vibe to her that made her character stand out, and made her more than a one-dimensional vacation fling.

Overall, this movie was lame, but still was in some aspects entertaining. This movie had the potential to be great, however, the ending ruined it. The ending kind of reminded of “Along Came Polly” but more idiotic and obscure.