“The Heartbreak Kid” starring Ben Stiller, is exactly what the title implies–a complete heartache, dream crusher, mood killer, or feel free to insert any other demeaning phrase here.

The movie is about Eddie (Stiller), a 40-year-old single man who can’t seem to take the plunge into marriage. He gets no help from his father, Doc (Jerry Stiller, Ben Stiller’s father in real life), who insists that Eddie live the bachelor life like him.

Mac (Rob Corddry), Eddie’s best friend, thinks that marriage is a blast, even though his wife wears the pants in his marriage. Mac tries to convince Eddie that marriage isn’t all bad and that he should take the plunge.

Eddie meets Lila (Malin Akerman), while trying to save her from being mugged. The two have an instant connection and begin dating.

After six weeks, Lila is offered a job in Germany, but doesn’t have to take it if she is married. After much convincing Eddie decides to take the plunge and the two get married. What a perfect way to begin a marriage!

While on their honeymoon, Eddie realizes that Lila might not be the right girl for him, after all. He begins to learn things about her that make him realize the relationship may not be a match made in heaven.

Eddie meets another girl one night at the hotel bar, named Miranda (Michelle Monaghan). The two form an instant friendship and Eddie falls for her. Now, Eddie is torn between his wife and the new girl that could be his perfect match.

The movie had potential to be good, but with all of the slapstick comedy and ridiculous lines, the movie fell into a hole fast. Not only was the slapstick comedy terrible, but unnecessary nudity just made the movie worse.

This movie is another one to put on Ben Stiller’s bad movie list and it looks like he’s beginning to rack them up. The acting was just average but it was the plot itself that just ruined everything.

Stiller could have pulled it off, but the fact that his character was a complete womanizer ruined the movie. The viewer cannot relate to him, and ends up hating him by the end of the movie and hopes that he get does get his heart broken!

Akerman and Monaghan did a decent job with the roles they were given, but neither one took their characters to anything beyond the script.

Jerry Stiller was awful as well. Once again, maybe if his character could have been likable it wouldn’t have been so bad.

Directed and written by the Farrelly brothers, one could have expected a ridiculous comedy. There seemed to be more effort in the actual production than the script, although there was very little in that. The movie seemed thrown together with little thought into placement of the camera or transitions from scene to scene. Everything was just very plain and simple.

Overall, I would recommend this movie to boys in their teens and twenties. They seemed to be the only ones in the theatre that actually enjoyed the production. Otherwise, skip this one and hope Stiller picks a better script next time.