Back Shelf Beauties
by Willie Waffle
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Gigli
Everywhere I go, people ask me if Gigli
is as bad as they hear it is.
Yes.
Yes it is.
This is the movie that proves that, in French, Gigli
means, "Oh my God, the apocalypse is upon us." I've heard about
fire, brimstone and eternal damnation, but none of that seems scary compared
to seeing this movie again.
Ben Affleck stars as Larry Gigli - a loser, second-rate mob enforcer. He
has been instructed to kidnap Brian (Justin Bartha) - the young, mentally
challenged brother of a Federal prosecutor trying to put Gigli's godfather
in jail. The mob thinks that they can intimidate the prosecutor into dropping
the charges if he feels his beloved brother is in danger, and because Gigli
is incompetent, a tougher mob enforcer, Ricki (Jennifer Lopez), is brought
in to make sure the caper goes according to plan.
Will Gigli and Ricki be able to pull it off? Will Gigli's lust for Ricki
screw everything up?
Gigli will forever be remembered as the
movie where J. Lo and Affleck fell in love, but I have trouble believing
that true love and marriage could spring from a movie this unholy, heinous
and horrible. I have seen worse movies, but this one is SO bad when you consider
the level of talent involved vs. how bad the script is and how badly conceived
the story is. One has to think that Lopez and Affleck must owe someone a
lot of money and were forced into making this one. I'd hate to think that
they liked the script and thought it had potential. And I can't even bring
myself to admit that Al Pacino (he was in THE GODFATHER and THE GODFATHER
II!) really was in this piece of junk. Maybe it's all a bad dream.
Gigli has a horrible script starting
from the idiocy of using a mentally challenged person for comic relief to
it's moronic debate about male vs. female sex organs to the stupid love story
that is supposed to emerge from this train wreck. Writer/director Martin
Brest seems to be going for the hip, cool vibe of David Mamet or Steven
Soderbergh, but ends up with a script that those two wouldn't use to line
a birdcage. The dialogue is painfully inappropriate, stupid, unfunny, pointless,
and unbelievable. I often look back on a movie like this and try to explain
to you how it could have been done better, but I think
Gigli never should have been made.
Brest can't figure out if this is a mob comedy, a love story or some edgy
indie film, and never seems to set the right tone for any of it. The music
feels as if it was lifted from an entirely different movie as it soars to
emotional climax, while the action on the screen doesn't warrant it or call
for it.
In a way, I feel sorry for Lopez, Affleck and Pacino (plus Christopher Walken
who also shows up for a quick scene). They seem to be trying so hard to get
something, anything out of a script that is devoid of anything interesting
and good. I particularly felt bad for Affleck, who is horribly miscast as
a two bit dumb hood. He looks too pretty to play the part, and no one decided
that they should do something to his hair, face, overly manicured eyebrows
or feminine lips to make him look tough and fit the role. Pacino is forced
to recite a soliloquy that varies wildly from supposed-to-be-funny to
supposed-to-be-scary, and Lopez is given the kind of dialogue that most female
actors would have walked away from just to maintain their pride. She should
have taken her script and thrown it into the fireplace. But, don't feel too
bad. I'm sure the checks cleared.
Gigli is the kind of movie that makes
me long for the days of vaudeville when you could just throw some rotten
tomatoes at the people on the stage. Grade:
F
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