The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary-Farrelly Brothers Deleted Scenes Outtakes-Gag Reel Featurette-The Farrelly Brothers in the French Tradition Featurette-Ben & Jerry Featurette-Heartbreak Halloween Featurette-The Egg Toss Easter Egg
Rating
Year Of Production	2007
Running Time	110:47
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (59:09)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Bobby Farrelly Peter Farrelly
Studio Distributor	Dreamworks Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Ben Stiller Malin Akerman Michelle Monaghan Jerry Stiller Rob Corddry Carlos Mencia Scott Wilson
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Bill Ryan Brendan Ryan

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English Audio Commentary English for the Hearing Impaired Dutch Swedish Norwegian Finnish Danish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, prologue scene partway through credits

    Eddie (Ben Stiller) has hit the big 4-0 and is happy with life. He runs a successful sporting goods store, owns his own home and has plenty to keep himself busy. The one thing he doesn't have is a wife. While that doesn't bother Eddie, it does bother his father (Jerry Stiller, Ben Stiller's real father) and his best friend Mac (Rob Corddry).

    Everything changes when Eddie meets Lila (Malin Akerman). She seems perfect. She's friendly, shares a lot of Eddie's interests and has a seemingly respectable career. Within six weeks they're married and off on their honeymoon. Alas, they don't even make it to the resort before Eddie's rosy image of Lila is shattered and he begins having second thoughts about the wedding.

    Eddie meets Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), who is holidaying with her family, at his honeymoon resort and it is not long before she becomes the new girl of his dreams. From that point on Eddie does his best to avoid Lila, with the aid of a sneaky hotel employee (Carlos Mencia), and gets to know Miranda the way he should be getting to know his bride. The longer Eddie spends with Miranda, the more desperate his situation becomes and the more his love becomes obsession.

    The Heartbreak Kid is a remake of the 1972 Charles Grodin/Cybill Shepherd movie of the same name, though the two have little in common beyond the overarching plot. Where the original was a very Jewish comedy from the mind of Neil Simon, this version is a distinctly Farrelly Brothers affair.

    The cast is excellent. The dynamic between Ben and Jerry Stiller is as uncomfortable as Christmas dinner with the family, which is exactly what the movie needs. The supporting cast is almost entirely comprised of scene stealers. They each have their moment and these are rarely when you expect them to come.

    The Heartbreak Kid is the funniest movie the Farrelly Brothers have made since There's Something About Mary. Unlike their last few watered-down movies the brothers are going for broke with outrageous humour and gross-out gags, the one thing they do best. Occasionally they border on trying a little bit too hard, but for the most part the gags will have you both laughing and cringing. Prudes beware!

Video

    The film is presented in its original 2.40:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The video quality is decent without being great. The image is reasonably sharp and free of distracting film grain. Blacks are fairly flat, however, and the detail in shadows and dark scenes is not particularly good.

    Colours are particularly bright and bold, while skin tones are quite natural, making for a good look to the film.

    The transfer is free of film artefacts, but a handful of distracting video artefacts are present. Several scenes feature edge enhancement to the point that it is a little distracting (eg 71:46). Mild macro-blocking is visible in a number of the darker scenes.

    The film features both plain English subtitles and English subtitles for the hearing impaired. Both sets of subtitles appeared to be accurate and well-timed based on the portion I sampled.

    This is a RSDL disc. The layer break occurs at 59:09 but was not noticeable on my equipment.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The film features an English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kbps) audio track.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand. There are no issues with audio sync, although the odd ADR loop point is noticeable.

    The film features a great soundtrack driven by classic rock (particularly David Bowie), but no orchestral score.

    The movie makes decent use of the surround speakers, primarily for subtle environmental effects and music. There isn't a lot of subwoofer usage, but neither is there much call for it.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Animation & Audio

    Bright, chirpy menus are abound.

Audio Commentary with The Farrelly Brothers

    Co-writers/Directors The Farrelly Brothers provide a moderately interesting commentary track, focusing more on trivia than technical aspects. There is an English subtitle track for this commentary.

The Farrelly Brothers in the French Tradition Featurette (16:36)

    A surprisingly interesting featurette about the Farrelly Brothers approach to filmmaking, which explains the beginning to end process of making The Heartbreak Kid. Told through interviews (with cast and crew) using a story format, the featurette covers the concept/script stage through to development, shooting and post production. One of the better short 'Making Of' featurettes I have seen.

Heartbreak Halloween Featurette (3:24)

    Halloween fell during filming, so the crew had a fancy dress day to celebrate. Filler, but worth a look.

Ben & Jerry Featurette (5:00)

    Jerry Stiller and Ben Stiller are father and son. It didn't need five minutes of my time to drum that into me, but there are a couple of funny outtakes here.

The Egg Toss Featurette (8:04)

    The cast and crew held a regular egg-toss game as a team bonding exercise. Rather than just tell us that fact, this featurette aims to teach what an egg toss is and some techniques to win one. An entertaining time-waster.

Deleted Scenes Featurette (7:28)

    6 deleted and extended scenes. Most are pretty funny but not as funny as the gags in the movie itself.

Gag Reel (4:01)

    A moderately entertaining gag/blooper reel.

Peter's Greatest Practical Joke Ever Easter Egg (3:01)

    Peter Farrelly tells the shaggy dog story of his favourite ever practical joke. Accessed by pressing Right on the remote when "Deleted Scenes" is selected on the special features menu.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    The Region 1 and Region 4 editions are identical save for language tracks and subtitles. Unless you require one of the missing languages, it's a tie.

    The Region 1 edition includes French and Spanish Audio and Subtitles that are not on the Region 4 edition.

    The Region 4 edition includes Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish Subtitles that are not on the Region 1 edition.

    The Heartbreak Kid is the funniest movie the Farrelly Brothers have made since There's Something About Mary. Free from the restraint of a more family oriented rating, this movie goes for broke with outrageous gross-out comedy and characters of questionably morality. Highly recommended to fans of There's Something About Mary and its ilk.

    The video transfer is reasonable, but darker scenes do not look great and edge enhancement is noticeable. The audio transfer is good.

    This disc features a good number of worthwhile extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall