Pop Machine‘s Mark Caro rips into the Farrelly Brothers‘ The Heartbreak Kid (Dreamamount, 10.5.07) with Ben Stiller in the Charles Grodin role.

Going by the trailer, Caro suspects the feature may be a cowardly, slapstick-shallow, hopelessly dumbed-down non-echo of Elaine May‘s original The Heartbreak Kid (1972), which was funny but at the same time traumatic, angst-y and occasionally cruel. My favorite scene was the abrasive after-dinner confrontation between Grodin and Eddie Albert (i.e., playing Cybil Shepherd’s dad), in which Albert tried to buy Grodin off.
Caro understands, of course, that every remake of a film made in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s has to be cruder and dumber than the original. He realizes that today’s under-35 moviegoer need things to be broader, louder, blunter, etc. “Hit me with it!…no, pour it over my head!” works much better than “nudge me in the ribs” or “whisper it in my ear.” Nonetheless, Caro is pissed.