For the Farrelly brothers, topping the slapstick and gross-out comedy of their lowbrow hits such as "Dumb & Dumber" and "There's Something About Mary" was never going to be easy. But in "The Heartbreak Kid," starring Ben Stiller and Malin Akerman, they have outdone themselves.

Should they take pride in such a thing? Why not? It's what they do. In this highly respun remake of Elaine May's 1972 comedy, Eddie Cantrow (Stiller) is on his honeymoon in Mexico with gorgeous Lila (Akerman) when he realizes he has made a terrible mistake. Lila is too much of everything, from her enthusiasm for Olympian sex to her almost limitless klutziness and stupidity.

Essentially, Bobby and Peter Farrelly use the source material as a launching point for their own brand of R-rated -- make that very R-rated -- low jinks. They are the violin masters of satirical, physical exaggeration. Stiller shows his gift for broad comedy as well as the subtle variety, suffering silently behind his tortured politeness. And Akerman is a fabulous comic partner, convincing us that nothing could be worse than being married to this leggy disaster. There's a sight gag motif around Lila's deviated septum that will rival Cameron Diaz's questionable hair gel in "Something About Mary."

You don't walk into the Farrellys' movies looking for subtlety, poignancy and all those things French movie characters do. But you can expect to fall about, snort and hoot, at times hard enough to hurt inner body parts that only doctors can identify. What makes this funnier than mere crafted crudity is the way they stretch to the breaking point the familiarities, taboos and embarrassing situations of life. We are as horrified, mortified and shocked as we are amused.

-- Desson Thomson (Oct. 5, 2007)

Contains just about everything objectionable except violence and -- unless I missed it -- pagan devil worship.