Americans will still pay to see Ben Stiller run his shtick into the ground, judging from the healthy box-office return for The Heartbreak Kid. But we have to look back over a decade to remember when we actually thought Ben Stiller was funny, and before we got a little sick of him playing another neurotic little guy in an impossible situation.
Why we missed it: Director David O. Russell wasn’t yet famous for films like Three Kings or for trying to set Lily Tomlin on fire verbally with a string of f-bombs.
Stiller himself had only achieved cult status for his short-lived sketch-comedy show and modest acclaim for his directorial debut, Reality Bites, when this film came out.
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