Movie Review Shallow Hal

Shallow Hal (2001) 

Directed by The Farrelly Brothers

Written by The Farrelly Brothers 

Starring Jack Black, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tony Robbins, Jason Alexander

Release Date November 9th, 2001 

Published March 15th, 2002

The Farrelly Brothers have had an extremely hit and miss career, having created two of the best comedies of the last ten years, Kingpin and There's Something About Mary, and a couple of the worst, Dumb and Dumber, Say It Isn't So and Osmosis Jones. I'm glad to say that with their latest effort, Shallow Hal, starring Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow, the Farrelly's have a hit on their hands. The Hal of Shallow Hal is High Fidelity's wind up toy from hell Jack Black and he is back himself after the misfire of Saving Silverman.

Hal is an extremely self deluded jerk who believes that all that matters when it comes to women is physical beauty, neglecting the fact that he is no prize pig himself. Jason Alexander plays his best friend Mauricio who shares Hal's delusion to an even greater degree, Mauricio also has a few of those truly Farrelly Esqe physical features that payoff with big laughs. One day Hal gets locked in an elevator with self improvement guru Tony Robbins, in a surprisingly dexterous turn, who listens to Hal's life story and decides to help him by hypnotizing him into seeing people's inner beauty.

Then Hal meets Rosemary who he and we see as Gwyneth Paltrow but who is actually Gwyneth 300 hundred pounds heavier. This is where the film could have gone wrong. It could have gone very wrong with disgusting jokes at the expense of overweight people but the Farrelly's deftly turn it into an almost afterschool special like a lesson on not judging a book by its cover.

Don't get me wrong, the film is very funny and often raunchy, but the inner beauty message is laid on a little thick at times. Gwyneth Paltrow is amazingly sweet and beautiful even under 300 hundred pounds of makeup. She and Jack Black make a surprisingly fantastic pair with great chemistry and timing. Paltrow is a tad stiff with the Farrelly's brand of physical humor but she makes up for it with a go for the gusto laughter that is very endearing. 

The Farrelly Brothers, when they indulge in their sweet side as they did in both Kingpin and There's Something ABout Mary, and now in Shallow Hal, are quite good at introducing and taking care of sweet, vulnerable characters. It's the sweetness that rescues the often quite sour humor of The Farrelly Brothers whose raunchy jokes may not be for everybody but when they are delivered with earnest good nature, they can reach all audiences equally. 

Shallow Hal is the proof of concept that not all Farrelly Brothers characters have to be obnoxious or on all the time in order to draw out a laughter. The Farrelly's deploy romance like weapon and use it soften the blow from their more sophomoric style of humor. 

Movie Review Stuck on You

Stuck on You (2003) 

Directed by The Farrelly Brothers 

Written by The Farrelly Brothers

Starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Cher, Eva Mendes, Seymour Cassell, Dane Cook, Lin Shaye, Bella Thorne 

Release Date December 12th, 2003

Published December 11th, 2003 

The Farrelly Brothers signature had always been juvenile grossout humor tinged with sweetness. With Shallow Hal, they seemed somewhat tame in the gross stuff. Now with their latest film Stuck On You, they seem to have moved beyond the grossout humor completely. What's really surprising however is that they prove just how much they don't need it anymore. This funny, sweet and unusual comedy about conjoined twins is some of the best work the Brothers have done since There's Something About Mary.

Walt (Greg Kinnear) and Bob (Matt Damon) were born attached by a single liver so dangerously small that doctors don't believe they can be separated. Thus the two have gone through life together playing sports, dating and running a restaurant on Martha's Vineyard where friends and family have come to completely accept the boys as they are.

Walt has recently become restless. His ambition has always been to be an actor and his one man shows at the community theater have all been well reviewed, even as poor Bob suffered from severe stage fright. Walt wishes to go to Hollywood and despite his reservations, Bob finally relents. The two leave behind their comfortable surroundings for the big city and Walt's shot at the big time.

Once in Hollywood it's not long until Walt hits the big time with a role opposite Cher on a CSI-esque show. All is not as it seems however, as Cher has hand selected Walt to be on the show in hopes that his being a conjoined twin will get the show canceled. Much to Cher's dismay, Walt turns out to be a hit and the producers find it easy to hide Bob behind props and with special effects. Even after their secret gets out, Walt becomes an even bigger hit.

As for Walt, moving to Los Angeles offers him the chance to meet his internet pen pal May (Wenn Yann Shih) who does not know he is conjoined. This leads to rather obvious jokes as Walt and Bob date May, with the help of an actress friend from their apartment complex April (Eva Mendes) coming along as Walt's date. The joke is obvious but the actors play it so well that it's easy to overlook that.

Naturally the subjects of surgery to separate themselves come up and these scenes are really terrific. I love how the film explains the age difference between Kinnear and Damon along with various other physiological complications. All of it handled without falling back on grossout humor but with the Farrelly Brothers other signature, sweet-natured ridiculousness. Both Bob and Walt are typical, delightfully clueless Farrelly characters who can't imagine why anyone would find them unusual.

The cast is terrific from top to bottom. Kinnear and Damon have a terrific chemistry with Damon really surprising us with his comic talent. You expect Kinnear to have great comic timing as he showed on TV's Talk Soup and the movie Sabrina. For Damon however, though he showed terrific humility in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, this is his first full-length comedic performance and I was surprised how well he pulled it off.

The supporting cast is every bit the equal of the leads with Eva Mendes really standing out. Her bubble-headed actress April provides some of the biggest laughs of the film with her ditzy reactions to the twins’ condition. The way she just thinks that the twins being connected is totally natural is priceless and part of the film’s charm. Cher is also good, perfectly willing to make herself the joke in what is her biggest acting role in a while. Watch out for a pair of terrific cameos as well, Meryl Streep shows up near the end and brings the house down.

The film is not as funny as Kingpin or as sweet as There's Something About Mary but Stuck On You proves that with or without shocking the audience with sight gags, the Farrelly brothers are just plain funny.

Movie Review The Heartbreak Kid

The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

Directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly 

Written by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly, Scot Armstrong, Leslie Dixon, Kevin Barnett

Starring Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman, Michelle Monaghan, Jerry Stiller, Rob Cordry, Danny McBride

Release Date October 5th, 2007 

Published October 4th, 2007 

Ben Stiller has the astonishing talent to remain as funny and likable in bad movies as he is in good movies. Night at the Museum, Meet The Fockers, Envy, all not so great movies and all movies where Stiller outshined the material provided to him. Stiller is once again in better than the movie mode in the Farrelly Brothers comedy The Heartbreak Kid. This sorta-romantic comedy, a remake of the 1972 Elaine may-Neil Simon teaming, has a terrific idea at its center and Stiller in fine form. Unfortunately directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly can't help but succumb to their worst instincts in a vain attempt to recapture past glory.

Eddie (Stiller) is 40 years old and never married. He was engaged for 5 years, but as we meet him in The Heartbreak Kid, he is attending his ex-fiance's wedding. Both Eddie's dad (Jerry Stiller) and his best pal Mac (Rob Corddry) give him no end of crap for not settling down when he had the chance. Thus when Eddie meets Lila (Malin Akerman) he rushes things a little bit.

Eddie and Lila fall into a relationship not long after he attempts to foil a bad guy who stole her purse. A whirlwind courtship leads to the hasty decision to get married and a disaster on the horizon. Taking their honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas, Eddie quickly realizes that Lila is a little off. She sings along with every song on the radio, she's horrible at math, and she's desperately in debt. She's also not very bright, thus why she is almost immediately laid up in the hotel room with a bad sunburn.

The time alone allows Eddie to meet Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), a beautiful women's lacrosse coach vacationing with her family. The two spark quickly and after spending a day together drinking and soaking in the local culture,  Eddie realizes he is in love. Now, he has to figure out a way to break it to Lila that they are not working out and make sure he has won Miranda's heart.

The set up for The Heartbreak Kid is solid, this is a terrific premise. Unfortunately, the Farrelly Brothers, back behind the camera for the first time since 2005's Fever Pitch, can't resist a return to their basest instincts. Fever Pitch was a sweet, good hearted romantic comedy that played straighter than any previous Farrelly's comedy. The Heartbreak Kid is a throwback to the less interesting Stuck On You, Shallow Hal, Me Myself and Irene days.

Those films distilled the essence of the Farrelly's oeuvre down to the lowest common denominator. Each has its moments, but for the most part each is a lesser and lesser version of the Farrelly's one true classic There's Something About Mary. The Heartbreak Kid is the palest imitation of all; featuring Stiller in the earnest, frustrated good guy role he played so well in Mary.

Sadly, The Heartbreak Kid fails to capture what made Mary such a great comedy. The combination of heart and humor in There's Something About Mary is a near perfect combination of good hearted romance and lowbrow, genitalia based humor. It's a combo nearly impossible to pull off and The Heartbreak Kid doesn't even come close.

Disgusting for the sake of being disgusting, slapstick for the sake of slapstick, The Heartbreak Kid constantly steps on the more interesting aspects of Eddie's romantic dilemma by dropping in unnecessarily crude humor. Do we really need Carlos Mencia as a porn loving, sex offending, hotel manager? Do we need Jerry Stiller grossing out everyone in earshot with his many horrifying sexual innuendos?

Did we need to see Ben Stiller getting peed on or a visual gag about women's privates that may be the lowest joke of any movie in 2007? I certainly don't think so. Not when Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman and Michelle Monaghan are doing such great work creating a comically tense love triangle. The crudity only serves to distract and get in the way.

Ben Stiller gets better and better each time out. In fact, Stiller has never seemed more comfortable onscreen as he does in The Heartbreak Kid. Granted, he's played the flustered good guy for more than a decade but really, you can finally see him losing his many tics and affectations and becoming comfortable being himself on screen. This newfound comfort only serves to turn this already funny actor into a more charming and interesting screen presence.

Stiller's work clearly has a good effect on co-star Malin Akerman who does much of the heavy lifting in the broad comic moments. Akerman is a great beauty who gives herself over to broad comedy in the most unexpected ways. Not everything about her performance works, but you have to respect her bravery and willingness to do anything that was asked of her.

Michelle Monaghan is the perfect romantic foil for Stiller. The two have tremendous chemistry and the romance between them was more than interesting enough to make The Heartbreak Kid work as a romantic comedy. It's unfortunate that Peter and Bobby Farrelly didn't trust their stars enough to back off, just a little, on the lowbrow stuff.

The potential is there for a terrific romantic comedy in The Heartbreak Kid. It's undone by writer-directors desperate for faded glory. Peter and Bobby Farrelly have seen diminishing returns on each of their films since There's Something About Mary. Only Fever Pitch betrayed an attitude that they really didn't care about mimicking their past success.

Reteaming with Ben Stiller however, the Farrelly's sensed an opportunity to regain their A-list status and went for broke trying to recreate something that just can't be captured a second time. Certainly not with such desperate pandering as that which breaks The Heartbreak Kid.