http://www.schlocktoberfest.com/current_columns/foy_0803b.htmlTHE AGONY OF GIGLI
Every negative thing you've heard about GIGLI is true and then some. It really is as bad as they say it is. In fact, it's the worst kind of bad movie because not only is it awful, it's downright boring. It's not fun bad. It's not MST3K bad. It's the kind of bad where you either squirm uncomfortably in your seat until it's over or simply walk out. At one point, thinking the movie had to be just about over, I checked my watch only to discover there was still another 40 minutes to go. Sitting through GIGLI was only slightly less painful than enduring Roberto Begnini's PINOCCHIO. At least GIGLI didn't almost reduce me to tears like PINOCCHIO did. For that reason only, I decided to tough it out.
Come to think, maybe they should have just called the movie f**kIN' since that's the most commonly used word in the movie? One thing is for certain; GIGLI is f**kIN' horrible!
Okay, Ben Affleck is Larry Gigli, a California mook who we're told is supposed to be a real "mad dog type" but from the looks of things the only thing dog-like about him is his bark. Gigli yells an awful lot but he never lays a finger on anyone in the entire movie or even conveys a real sense of menace about doing so outside of the very first scene in the movie where he has some sap bound and gagged inside a Laundromat dryer. Despite the fact that he's basically playing a low rent skullcracker for the mob, the way the character is written and the way Affleck portrays him the character of Larry Gigli could just as easily be Affleck's character from GOOD WILL HUNTING for all you know.
His boss is this annoying prick named Lou who also likes to yell a lot. Lou seems to spend every waking hour of the day loitering around this outdoor cafe with his cellphone. Lou works for a big New York mobster and doesn't think too much of his top goon. Gigli's new job is to kidnap the mentally handicapped younger brother of some guy giving the mob boss a hard time back east.
So how does Gigli accomplish this kidnapping? He simply goes to the center where the brother lives, talks to him for 5 minutes, and then walks out the front door with him. I live a few miles away from a mental retardation center and can tell you that place requires you to get past a metal gate and a guard post just to get onto the grounds. This guy just convinces the brother to leave with him and they proceed to walkout without incident. If nothing else, there should have at least been a supervisor on the premises.
And let me tell you, the character of Bryan, the mentally retarded brother, is one of the worst characters I've ever seen. Imagine if Tom Hanks had an autistic son who is horny, obsessed with the beach, loves to recite rap lyrics, laughs at virtually everything he says, and suffers from occasional bouts of Turret's Syndrome. There was only one other person in the theater with me and he seemed to think a profanity-spewing retard was the most hysterical thing ever. It was amazing some of the stuff he actually found funny. I however found Bryan to be the equivalent of Freddy Krueger screeching his razors across a chalkboard. At one point they're told by Lou to cut off his thumb but they can't bring themselves to do it because he's just so loveable. Give me an axe and I'd have gladly taken more than a thumb!
Bryan's also so loyal, so sweet natured and well behaved that he borders on being a prop more than an actual character. He's like an escapee from THE OTHER SISTER. Truth be told they could have replaced this character with a really smart dog or chimpanzee and it wouldn't have made that huge an impact on the plot.
Mere minutes after arriving at Gigli's apartment, Jennifer Lopez shows up and explains to him that Lou sent her to assist since he doesn't trust him enough with a job this big. Lopez's character is named Ricki and she's… Actually, I'm still not sure what the hell she was supposed to be. From the sounds of things she's supposed to be a hit woman but she shows no edge and is practically playing this role exactly as she played her part in THE WEDDING PLANNER. She's the nicest, sweetest, most down to earth lesbian hit woman ever put to film!
There's a scene a little later in the movie where she and Gigli are being bothered by some teens so she approaches the leader of the group and gives him this speech about this bogus kung fu technique she knows that involves ripping out someone's eyes. The teens are totally intimidated and back down. Problem is, the way Lopez delivers her lines, in real life she would have finished that speech only to get laughed at and probably had some lewd comments tossed in her direction. Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH was more believable than Jennifer Lopez is in this movie as a lesbian hit woman. Granted writer/director Martin Brest deserves much of the blame for this (and pretty much everything else about the movie) but this is a woman who really should be tougher and harder edged. Instead we get the sassy girl next door who just happens to be a lesbian mob enforcer. Whatever.
And since she's a lesbian this means we get to listen to the countless monologues by the twosome about relationships, sexuality, etc. and how they differ between straights and gays. These go on and on and on and on and on. I watched Ebert & Roeper review this movie a few hours after I saw the film myself and Ebert talked about how well written he thought the scene where they take turns filibustering about penises and vaginas was. Ebert neglected to mention in his review that this particular scene takes place while Jennifer Lopez is dressed in nothing but a cutoff tank top and exercise shorts and she is seductively performing calisthenics in the moonlight. It's no secret that Ebert has a fetish for J'Lo rivaled on by his carnal lust for Angelina Jolie so I have a hard time believing he was even listening to dialogue in this scene let alone thinking it was well written. If someone who looked more like Melissa Etheridge or Ellen DeGeneres was playing Ricki I rather doubt he'd be praising such pap. This one scene is pretty much the epitome of what's wrong with the movie. It's inane and disingenuous. The whole movie is filled with moments like this as the masculine mook tries to sweet talk the stone cold lesbian into accepting sexuality as Jesus intended.
And according to this film, the only thing it takes to convert a lesbian is just to open up about how much it hurts not being able to make love to her. At least that's what I picked up from it. They keep going back and forth arguing and then suddenly they're getting all warm and fuzzy and before you know it they're having sex. Maybe Affleck should just make a movie called THE CONVERTER where he goes around getting lesbians to fall in love with him?
And what's the point of having Jennifer Lopez perform a sex scene in an R-rated movie if she wears more clothing in it than she does in her music videos?
Now that I think about it, as much as Halle Berry reportedly complains about Storm not having enough to do in the X-MEN movies, she should be on her hands and knees this morning thanking God that the production schedule for X2 forced her to drop out of GIGLI thus allowing J'Lo to take a bullet that was intended for her.
Okay, I kind of got sidetracked there. What is the plot again? Oh yeah, they're supposed to watch over the mentally retarded brother that they've taken hostage although the brother doesn't know that because he thinks Gigli picked him up to take him to Baywatch. Yes, I said Baywatch. I swear it will be explained momentarily.
Before long, Christopher Walken shows up for five minutes to collect an easy paycheck. What the hell has happened to Walken? THE COUNTRY BEARS, KANGAROO JACK, GIGLI, and next month he's in THE RUNDOWN; does this man need a new agent or was there some unreported accident on the set of that Fat Boy Slim video where one of the wires broke and he got slammed headfirst against the wall? It's time for an intervention, people.
So anyway, Walken shows up as a cop with whom Gigli apparently has a history but damned if this movie can even bother to tell us what that history is. After rambling on incoherently about ice cream for a minute or two, Walken gets to the point and reveals that Bryan is the brother of federal prosecutor (Or as Bryan says later in the movie in what was surely intended to be a moment of hilarity, "a federal prosituter.") currently trying the mob boss in New York. It's obvious that Walken knows Gigli had something to do with the disappearance but none of that matters because once he leaves the apartment this character is never seen or heard from again.
Neither Gigli nor Ricki knew whom Bryan was related to or what Lou really had in mind so they momentarily freak out and then do what anyone in that situation would do - go out to eat at a hamburger stand! Yeah, brilliant! What's that? You just kidnapped the brother of a federal prosecutor preparing to try a major crime boss and at least one cop is on to you, is it really a good time to be going out in public with the person you kidnapped? Yet they spend a significant portion of the movie driving around town, in a convertible no less, without incident. It boggles the mind how anyone could write something this ludicrous this is.
As the movie progresses, we get plenty of inane speeches, lousy jokes, p**s poor dialogue and along the way we get more wacky characters such as Lainie Kazan, who has a brief appearance as Gigli's mother. If I live to be 1,000 I'll still have yet to cleanse my mind of that close-up panty shot of her as she's given an insulin injection. You see more of her ass in that scene then you'll ever want to. Damn my eyes! The mother's only real purpose is to reveal that she too once experimented with the same sex in her youth so that Gigli can get all wigged out.
A little later in the movie we get a surprise visit from Ricki's lesbian ex-lover, who it turns out is both a lunatic and suicidal as after several minutes of the trio screaming at each other non-stop, she casually walks into the kitchen and slices her wrists. They take her to the hospital and as they leave the whole romantic subplot between the two leads really begins to kick in. Perhaps the reason for the Lopez character's sudden conversion was less about Affleck and more about just being sick of dating psycho drama queens?
Ah yes, as mentioned earlier, they were ordered by Lou to cut off one of Bryan's thumbs and mail it to the courthouse in New York. Despite the fact that Gigli and Ricki are more or less supposed to be ruthless thugs for hire, neither can bring themselves to do it so they sneak into the hospital morgue instead. And they even bring Bryan with them for no other reason than to give us some supposed comic relief as he sings "Baby Got Back" while Gigli cuts the thumb off some corpse.
After more chemistry-free romancing and mind-numbing dialogue, it's time for the Al Pacino cameo as the mob boss who has flown out to the West Coast and called a private meeting at his place between himself, Lou, Gigli, and Ricki. Turns out he's actually really p**sed that anyone would come up with a plan as stupid as kidnapping the brother of a federal prosecutor and threatening to kill him in exchange for an acquittal because all that's succeeded in doing is really turning up the heat on him. Pacino is in scenery chewing overdrive during this scene leading up to him killing Lou. Fortunately, Lopez is able to soothe the savage beast by promising to make everything right and so they are allowed to leave with their lives.
And how do they plan to make things right? They just plan to take Bryan back to where Gigli got him from and then skip town. Without question, a truly brilliant way to clean up such a fine mess! However, as they're driving along the beach front highway, Bryan suddenly goes apes**t screaming about "Baywatch," which is essentially his way of describing going to the beach, and it just so happens that the stretch of beach they're driving along is filming some Baywatch-like program.
In the nauseating conclusion to this septic tank of cinematic craptitude, Bryan is allowed to take part in the show being filmed and Gigli notifies the authorities of the brother's location and prepares to turn himself in allowing Ricki to escape in the process. But I guess test audiences just didn't like that ending and so Gigli and Rochelle, Ricki finally reveals her real name, ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Roll credits. The agony is over.
The day before I saw this movie I watched the entire four-hour miniseries PETER BENCHLEY'S CREATURE in one sitting. As lame as that turned out to be, GIGLI still felt at least three times longer. Just how awful is GIGLI? As the closing credits began to roll, much like with the Iraqis and Hussein's sons, I wanted to see pictures of the corpses of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck just to be absolutely convinced this nightmare was over!
Now let us never speak of it again.
