Today’s Review: Gigli
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez
Written and Directed by Martin Brest.
Rating: 0 out of 5.
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The Naked Critic
First, let me put this in perspective. Last week, a good friend of mine sent me
a copy of “From Justin To Kelly” on DVD for me to watch. And watch it
I did. And, as you might expect, it was bad. Very, very bad.
Gigli is worse.
I think I can say, without hyperbole, that this is the worst movie ever made. I
think I can also say, again without hyperbole, that there is currently a
special place in Hades awaiting Martin Brest. A new ring, one that Dante
couldn’t even conceive of – a ring forged by the tears of angels and
demons alike who were forced to watch this movie, a ring where even Lucifer
himself would not dare to venture, choosing instead to gaze at it in fear
whilst chewing on Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. You don’t even WANT
to know how I feel if I allow hyperbole to enter the picture.
Brest, of course, has made some pretty good movies in his day. He directed
Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, and the vastly over-rated Scent Of A Woman.
So, how did he go wrong? Well, his first mistake was writing Gigli. I
don’t know who told this guy that writing this was a good idea. I also
don’t know what executive greenlit this turd, but there’s a spot on
ring #10 for him too.
In a nutshell, the movie is offensive. It actually offended me. Do you have any
idea how hard it is to offend me?? I used to do tech support for a website that
specialized in midget porn, for the love of Pete.
Ok, let’s start with the plot, such that it is. Ben Affleck plays a doofus
named Larry Gigli. That’s not pronounced “Jiggly” by the way,
it’s pronounced “Jeely”, as in “rhymes with
‘really’”. The only reason that they’ve given him such a
stupid name is – apparently – so he can tell people that it rhymes
with “really”. Anyways, he’s a mob “enforcer”, but he
sucks at it. At the beginning of the movie, he’s stuffing some poor shlub
into a clothes dryer in order to get him to “pay up”. The guy finally
gives him some money, but not all of it. Apparently this is fine with Larry,
who has absolutely no mob business sense at all. I mean, if you get a loan from
a loanshark and refuse to pay them everything back, you lose digits. We all
know this. Since when has the Mafia instituted an instalment plan? And if they
HAVE, how do I get in on the action? I’m sure their interest rates are
much more reasonable than my bank’s.
Larry’s boss Louis berates him for going soft on the guy and insults him a
lot. This is a recurring theme in the movie…Larry gets chewed out and
insulted by his Louis a lot, but there’s something oddly satisfying about
this. After all, even this early in the movie, the entire audience wants to
berate and threaten Affleck as well. This would have made Louis the hero of the
piece if he wasn’t such a poorly-acted, cardboard, one-dimensional Italian
stereotype.
Now Larry’s been given a new assignment. He is to kidnap the mentally
handicapped brother of a District Attorney in order to force him to drop
charges against their New York boss. I’m just going to let this sink in
for a moment. The plot of this “comedy” is the kidnapping of a
retarded kid. Laughing yet?
So Larry casually strolls into the Adult Care Facility the kid’s lives in
and casually walks out again. This facility is obviously staffed by security
that couldn’t make the cut as airport screeners. The kid, Brian, is
apparently the love-child of Raymond Babbit and Screech from Saved By The Bell,
except the actor – some guy named Justin Bartha – isn’t as
charming or talented as either of them. Yup…I said it…this kid would
have been out-acted by Dustin Diamond. Not only is he autistic, he also has
some form of Tourette’s Syndrome, which means he spends most of the movie
either spouting obscenities at random or quoting rap lyrics. I wish to Christ I
was making this up.
Well, guess what? Larry doesn’t like Brian. This gives him the excuse to
constantly call him “idiot”, “moron” and the ever-popular
“retard”. Brian seems to only be interested in going to visit
“The Baywatch” or to everyone else “The Beach”.
Larry’s a clever enough fellow that he picks up a flashlight - pretending
it’s a phone – to keep telling him that someone called to say that
“The Baywatch” is closed. He doesn’t talk into his
cell-phone…he talks into a flashlight. See, and THAT’S funny because
it shows you just how mentally handicapped Brian is! He can’t tell the
difference between a phone and a flashlight! Stop, my aching ribs!
Well, boss Louis has figured out just how stupid Larry actually is, so he sends
over a second “contractor” to keep an eye on the pair. This second
“contractor”, Ricki, is in the curvaceous, over-rated shape of
Jennifer Lopez (I will never, as long as I live, refer to this future
Center-Square as J. Lo). Naturally, Larry thinks she’s hot. Even more
naturally, Ricki thinks Larry is about as sharp as a sack of wet oatmeal and
only marginally more appealing physically. The big joke here, kids, is that
Ricki is a…get ready…lesbian! You know that by the end of the movie
Ben Affleck will convert her, because that’s apparently his
“thing”.
So we’re then treated to about 2 hours of dyke jokes, double-entendres,
verbal sparring between Affleck and Lopez, and Affleck being verbally abusive
to a mentally-challenged young man. Bring plenty of stitches, gang, ‘cause
you’ll be IN THEM! This movie is patently offensive on so many levels,
it’s hard to count them all. Most notorious is the movie’s treatment
of the Brian character. Ok, we GET the fact that he’s “special”
but the way this movie treats him, it’s as if a schoolyard bully wrote it.
Brian likes to hear a story before going to sleep. Surprise surprise, but Larry
doesn’t have any books in the house. So he reads him the labels from
bottles of Tabasco Sauce and packages of toilet paper.
They also give this poor character offensive things to say…like when he
explains that he likes pretty girls because they make his “penis
sneeze”. You read that right. Just typing the words filled me with a blind
rage. This is made even worse by Bartha’s truly horrible performance. This
is the first time I’ve ever actually wished bodily harm on an actor. I
ferventy pray that, some day soon, he’ll be walking down Hollywood
Boulevard and have a safe fall on him.
Affleck and Lopez have all the chemistry of a brick and a wad of
previously-enjoyed chewing gum, respectively. But you almost can’t blame
them, simply because of the inane things they’re asked to say. Lopez has
what must go on record as the most embarrassing monologue in the history of
film. She spends what feels like a full 5 minutes talking about how perfect a
woman’s vagina is, all the while contorting herself into yoga positions to
better display her body to the apparently-horny Affleck. There’s more
camel-toe in this scene than in the entire nation of Morocco. I daresay
we’re treated to a view of Lopez that only Affleck, Sean “P.
Diddy” Combs, and her gynecologist have seen. (Cris Judd might have seen
it as well…we don’t have any proof of that though. I mean, I’m
not SAYIN’ anything, but the guy’s a choreographer.) All the while,
Affleck is looking on with an expression that reads as if he’s thinking
“I hope craft services brings those little chopped-egg sandwiches I like
so much.”
And these rumours are true…during the big seduction scene, Lopez does, in
fact, utter the words “It’s turkey time…gobble gobble.”
Affleck spends the rest of the scene looking like he’s trying not to
laugh…and then finishes off by looking down at himself and saying
“Bless you, penis”. You see…because it had just finished
sneezing. GET IT? I’ll wait a few moments for your peals of laughter to
subside.
I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten across how bad this movie is, but bear
with me for these next few comments.
During an early scene, before finding out about Lopez’s
“proclivities”, Affleck decides he’s going to try and seduce
her. When he comes into the bedroom, the alarm clock reads “10:38”. A
few moments later, it reads “10:37”. My friend Red who came to see
this with me chalked it up to a continuity error. I have a different
theory…I think that this movie is actually so bad that it bends the fabric
of space-time, so that time actually reverses itself. For all I know, the movie
was 6 hours long rather than two.
During one memorable segment, Lopez approaches a gang of young street-toughs
and intimidates them by describing an eye-gouge technique that would pull out
your optic nerves as well as the part of the brain that stores your memories of
vision…essentially making you not only blind, but robbed of any memory of
what sight looks like. By the time she delivered this speech, I was ready to
beg someone to do this to me.
In another, Lopez’s jealous and psychotic lesbian lover manages to track
her down at Affleck’s apartment. Let’s forget for a moment that a
highly regarded mob contractor from out of town could be easily tracked to an
anonymous LA apartment, because trying to figure THAT out will give you a
headache…trust me. At any rate, she attempts to kill herself. I actually
ENVIED her.
Not even some entertaining cameos by Al Pacino and Christopher Walken can
elevate this movie to anything more than an abomination against Man and God.
Unless, of course, you have a burning desire to see Lanie Kazan get an
injection in her ass. In that case, this is the movie for you. If not, steer
clear of any city that has a cinema-house showing this movie.
Copyright 2003, All Rights Reserved
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