Shark-bite DVD Review: Heartbreak Kid: Fleecing the audience like the Patagonia product line

"You should go with the Patagonia. It's made from 100% recycled material."

Nothing will have you have you reaching for a bottle of antacids and chasing it with a gulp of de-fizzed Canada Dry like hammer-fisted product placements, and if you do manage to slip the first punch (a camera shot that lingers on the Patagonia sign in Stiller's sporting goods store) the ringing endorsement above will surely put you on the canvas.

The Heartbreak Kid is recycled material too. Enough to re-pave an LA freeway.

Or San Francisco, in this case.

Stiller plays the role that has lingered in a Hollywood blue box container for years, albeit more often with the fairer sex: the guy, in this case, who just can't seem to settle down/keeps meeting the wrong person, who has numerous character failings that are offset by being a genuinely nice guy (discovered by a 'nice girl' counterpart who at first doesn't take notice but gradually comes to do so---or not so gradually as it seems, as these romantic comedies are always criminally overlong).

Stiller is 'Eddie', the socially awkward, put upon, Bay City hard luck chump who bemoans his single-hood and is dispensed not so paternal advice ('you should be crushing pussy') from real life dad Jerry.

His good Samaritan ways capture the attention of the mugging victim, Swedish knock-out Malin Akerman ('Lila') and after six weeks of whirlwind courtship, an atmospheric event that unfortunately didn't send the pages of the Neil Simon script adaptation flying in a direction away from whoever green-lighted this--they end up in Cabo on a honeymoon.

This is where things begin to unravel. Unlike the charmer he was earlier: 'A UFO is an 'FO' to them [aliens], 'cause they know what it is', she is soon put off by most of his interests, and he by hers especially when finding out she is not really an environmental researcher (apparently, the phrase 'exactly what kind of research are you involved in?' or 'what did you study in college that led you down this career path?' didn't come up in the weeks leading up to their nuptials) but some kind of hippie granola volunteer who hands out pamphlets, and wants to move to Holland.

After suspecting their personalities aren't quite as compatible as previously thought, Eddie finds out this is the case sexually as well (apparently, their six week courtship was an abstinent one), with a painful, in both senses of the word, string of related gags.

Despite his warning that she don sunscreen, Lila suffers a debilitating sun burn and Stiller's Eddie does what any supportive husband would do: leaves her alone, goes down to the beach, drinks himself silly and hits it off with a southern belle and her charming family who he then proceeds to bamboozle in every way imaginable to keep up the single charade, until he's found out and has to make amends with all concerned.

If you've heard all this before, you have, except this time with the Farrelly Brothers stock-in-trade: obscene latrine humor and a really sick donkey sex sight gag with the beast of burden sporting wood.

While a similar gag actually worked in Clerks II, and at this point I can't believe there is a cinematic precedent, it, like all the others gags here, seems to fall flaccid. The camera lingers on for too long (especially harsh in this instance) and the brief bits of physical comedy just seem arbitrary and out of place. It should be mentioned, so does Seth Rogan, who pops his head into one scene for the briefest of cameos, hands someone a beer and seems embarrassed to be there and leaves.

And quite rightly.

Miles away from his San Francisco sporting goods store, Patagonia rears its head again, this time as a reference to a 'bunch of suppliers' Eddie supposedly met on the beach, a gambit to thwart his increasingly leery wife, a half-wit to the beguiling Stiller, but still undeserving of such cruel deceit while laid up in a hotel bed. Pleading with his suspicious bride Stiller blurts: "Patagonia is my biggest supplier. I carry their entire line".

The audience, nor her, are buying it and at the end of the day, are fleeced.

Chris, Toronto
www.thesharkguys.com