Gigli

[Natasha (candygirl)]

filmcritic.com

That deafening sound you hear is negative buzz. Gigli just opened, and already it has plenty. Early test screenings started it. The media fueled it. And the release of the film may finally conclude our on-going fascination with A-list celebrity couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.

For those who never tune into E! (shame on you), here’s the backstory. Ben and Jen fell in love on the Gigli set. Fireworks off-screen, though, didn’t translate to chemistry on-screen, and the movie was shredded by test audiences. Columbia originally planned to open Gigli in November 2002, but hesitated and shelved the film until now, which usually signifies disaster.

The results aren’t as dire as expected, but they remain far from entertaining. Together, Affleck and Lopez have approximately six good movies to their names. Gigli isn’t one of them. Vulgar, insensitive and unaware of its direction, the split-personality character study wavers from mob drama to romantic comedy when it should’ve picked one and stuck with it.

Blame writer/director Martin Brest, who has helmed good movies in the past (Midnight Run, Scent of a Woman), but hasn’t written a script since 1979’s Going in Style. His rust coats Gigli like a suit of armor. There’s no rhythm to his putrid dialogue, no flow to his preposterous scenes. Conversations are loaded with sex talk, but devoid of heat. The movie occasionally builds momentum, but crass punch lines linger around every corner, ready to stop this train in its tracks.

The story centers on thug-for-hire Larry Gigli (Affleck), which rhymes with “really.” Petty mobster Louis (Lenny Venito) orders Gigli to kidnap Brian (Justin Bartha), the mentally disabled brother of a federal prosecutor. They hope to use their hostage as leverage in a case pending against their crime boss, Starkman (Al Pacino). But shortly after assigning Gigli to the kidnapping, Louis loses faith and sends in levelheaded Ricki (Lopez) for reinforcements.

Logic exits once Jenny from the block enters, and erratic character motivations raise more questions than answers. Why does Louis assign Gigli to such an important task if he doesn’t trust him? And what sours Louis on Gigli, who up until this point seems to be a bullheaded but loyal goon? The answer, while pat, is that Gigli needs Louis to be hostile so that Ricki can enter the picture and our cute couple can commence mugging.

As for the celebrated twosome, they labor through with heads held high but are constantly betrayed by Brest’s impractical script. Lopez diligently recites her loquacious lines about Zen living, but she’s not believable as a beauty with a brain, a pacifist packed into a denim mini-skirt. Affleck’s not sure whether to play for exaggerated laughs or straight-up intimidation. The script gives him no guidance, so he haphazardly tries both, whether it fits the mood of the current scene or not.

Newcomer Bartha sees Brian as a poor man’s version of Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man character, but never amounts to more than a device. He periodically suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome, sporadically breaks out into old school rap songs like Sir Mix a Lot’s “Baby Got Back” (a J. Lo homage, no doubt), and dreams of living in the place where Baywatch is filmed. Brest’s incessant attempts to humiliate this character border on cruelty. Only the deliciously over-the-top cameos by Pacino and Christopher Walken snatch Gigli from the trash heap and give you two reasons to eventually watch this movie on HBO.

The rest is forgettable. Brest’s insufferable screenplay is rife with endless blow job references and ambiguous questions regarding Gigli’s heterosexuality. You’d think Affleck’s buddy Kevin Smith took a shot at the rewrites. Heck, if Jason Mewes had plugged himself into the Brian character and the action had shifted from Santa Monica to Red Bank, NJ, Gigli could have been a Smith movie.

Ironically, it’s Smith who has the most to lose over the Gigli backlash. Affleck and Lopez are set to star in the director’s forthcoming Jersey Girl, due out in February. Perhaps Ashton Kutcher will have married the Olsen Twins by then, though, and the world will have moved past the merger of Ben and Jen.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sean Axmaker

Ben Affleck swaggers under a crooked, cocky grin as the self-proclaimed "sultan of slick" Larry Gigli ("rhymes with really"). At times a calmly effective debt collector with minor league style, at other times a gangster wannabe with a short fuse and delusions of adequacy, this thickheaded underworld contractor thinks he's the Springsteen of Italian American street thugs.

He winds up more of a Sonny Bono when his cockroach of a loan shark boss (Lenny Venito) foists upon him a sassy Cher -- actually a yoga-practicing lesbian named Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) -- and turns his solo act into a duet.

In the course of their joint operation -- kidnapping a mentally disabled kid (Justin Bartha) to extort his powerful brother -- the two spar in sexual arguments that cross the line of inexplicability, and they learn to love the big kid like a pet. It's hard to tell what writer/director Martin Brest ("Meet Joe Black") had in mind when he concocted his odd couple romance.

Affleck preens like a thick-headed pretty-boy yo-yoing between personality extremes while Lopez fares better as the New Age criminal contractor, but vies with her behind for face time with Brest's ogling camera. Together they generate all the heat of a snowball.

As if to distract us, Christopher Walken momentarily steps in from Walkenland and pours out his trademark ticks and mannerism in a clipped, halting monologue, just to drop a plot point that should have been handled with more finesse and less wasted effort.

Al Pacino (apparently paying back Brest for his "Scent of a Woman" Oscar) tosses his past performances into a blender and pours out a growling Pacino gangster smoothie for his one scene.

Anyone on the Internet grapevine already has the news: "Gigli" is this summer's rotten egg. But buzz can be deceiving. Anyone expecting a cinematic train wreck on the scale of "Showgirls" will be disappointed.

There is no histrionic excess or crackpot camp, only hoary sentiment, the puppy-dog cuteness of the mentally handicapped, and the proposition that the "cure" for lesbianism is one good man brave enough to get in touch with his inner cow. Moo.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Damn, I really was hoping for Showgirls type disaster. At least when they show that on VH-1 I can laugh at Elizabeth Berkeley's wooden line-reading and wonder how much money they spent to digitally cover up all the boobies.

[Nostradamus]

From The Onion, America's Finest News Source:

(Warning: very graphic )

Gigli Focus Groups Demand New Ending In Which Both Affleck And Lopez Die

[doodles444s]

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Mov ... iew.gigli/
By Paul Clinton
CNN Reviewer

(CNN) -- OK, so "Gigli" is not the worst film in years. That dubious title still goes to "Swept Away," or maybe "Freddy Got Fingered." But "Gigli" is still a huge waste of celluloid.

In Hollywood, it's all about "what have you done lately," and despite such successes as "Scent of a Woman," "Midnight Run" and "Beverly Hills Cop," writer/director/producer Martin Brest has done nothing that can make up for this ill-conceived mess.

If miscasting was a crime, this movie would be proof of a felony. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez fit their characters like a glove -- if the glove in question belonged to O.J. Simpson.

Affleck plays a low-level mob enforcer named Larry Gigli (pronounced like "really") assigned to kidnap a mentally challenged young man, Brian (think Raymond in "Rainman"), played amazingly well by Justin Bartha in his feature film debut. Affleck's real-life lady love, Lopez (they met during the filming of this movie), plays Ricki, another mob enforcer hired to keep an eye on Gigli.

Insult upon insult
It seems Brian's brother is a powerful federal prosecutor who is after a mob boss, played by Al Pacino. The plan is for the prosecutor to drop the charges against the gangster in order to get his brother back safe and sound.

Say what? In what universe?

Of course, Ricki and Larry fight like cats and dogs and hate each other from the get-go -- a sure sign that they'll be under the sheets by the second reel. And they are, despite the fact that Ricki is a lesbian.

Lopez plays a lesbian hitwoman sent to keep an eye on Affleck's hitman Gigli in "Gigli."
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Ben Affleck, who already did this in "Chasing Amy," is at it again. He's become "Benny the lesbian changer," the new secret weapon for the religious right. In all fairness, the ending was changed at the last minute after massive negative audience reactions in test screenings. This, however, is only the final insult after a film full of them.

There were obviously many changes made during the making of this cinematic train wreck. The story is all over the place: there is one really strange scene with Christopher Walken playing a cop, and then we never see him again. He's on the cutting room floor.

Wishing he were there too is Pacino, who appears in only one embarrassing scene.

Beyond the cringe
But the award for the most cringe-inducing moment goes to Lopez, for a scene in which she stretches out on the floor in every sexual position known to man while debating the pros and cons of female and male anatomy. I know, it sounds hot on paper, doesn't it?

The bad guy characters become good guys with no motivation, nor any visible cause or effect. None of the scenes seem to be connected to each other in any way; the entire film feels like it was edited on an assembly line, without feeling for rhythm or nuance.

At one point, Ricki's lesbian lover breaks into their "hideout" and tries to commit suicide. After comforting her in the hospital, Ricki runs back and jumps in the sack with the "lesbian changer." This is a comedy?

Brest showed such great promise in the 1980s with hit after hit, as mentioned above. Then, in 1998, he gave us "Meet Joe Black." Now he's given us "Gigli." He should remember that California is a "three strikes and you're out" state for criminal offenders.

[Megs]

The Affleck effect is akin to a black hole, sucking all the energy and life out of every scene he's in.

Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

[Natasha (candygirl)]

I also love the line preceding that one:

Finally, there's Affleck. Matt's Ben. Gwyneth's Ben. Now, J. Lo’s Ben. Ben, who has the blockiest head in movies next to Ted Danson, James Van Der Beek, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster.

Now who was it here who said that James Van Der Beek had a huge head? It was in one of those Dawson's Creek threads...Anyway, I knew someone else would appreciate the big head comment.

[Megs]

I also love the line preceding that one:

Finally, there's Affleck. Matt's Ben. Gwyneth's Ben. Now, J. Lo’s Ben. Ben, who has the blockiest head in movies next to Ted Danson, James Van Der Beek, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster.

Now who was it here who said that James Van Der Beek had a huge head? It was in one of those Dawson's Creek threads...Anyway, I knew someone else would appreciate the big head comment.

Yeah, I think we discussed that in one of the DC threads. The Beek has a humongous head. Bigger than Bennifer's, I would say!

[fnordboy]

Yeah, I think we discussed that in one of the DC threads. The Beek has a humongous head. Bigger than Bennifer's, I would say!

Actually I think it began in the Rules of Attraction thread, maybe went elsewhere from there.

[Megs]

Actually I think it began in the Rules of Attraction thread, maybe went elsewhere from there.

That smilie scares me.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

One of the best movie reviews I have seen since Gigli was in today's NY Times for Justin Timberlake's movie Alpha Dog:

Just a Bunch of Kids Who Kidnap and Kill

"Alpha Dog," starring Justin Timberlake, has "the same entertainment value you get from watching monkeys fling scat at one another," writes Manohla Dargis.