focus on the familys review of deuce bigelow2

[lester1/2jr]

 

  RATED R
DISTRIBUTED BY
Columbia Pictures
DIRECTED BY
Mike Bigelow
STARRING
Rob Schneider as Deuce Bigalow; Eddie Griffin as T.J. Hicks; Jeroen Krabbé as Gaspar Voorsboch; Til Schweiger as Heinz Hummer; Hanna Verboom as Eva
REVIEWED BY
Adam R. Holz
   
   
   Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo  




ONLINE EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS FILM FEATURES GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT. THIS REVIEW REFERENCES THAT CONTENT AND IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN.


Six years after his first R-rated misadventures corrupted the big screen, Deuce Bigalow is back. Since that time, Deuce's wife has been eaten by a shark (her prosthetic leg is all that remains, and Deuce takes it everywhere he goes). He's traded his self-described "man-whore" ways for being a fish enthusiast. But when his old pimp, T.J. Hicks, invites him to sample Amsterdam's libertine pleasures, things begin to go awry.

It's not long before T.J. and Deuce learn that someone is systematically murdering male prostitutes in Amsterdam. But when the pair offers to help the fraternity-like brotherhood of the Royal Order of European Man-Whores solve this mystery, they're roundly rejected. Then Deuce's ineptitude accidentally implicates T.J. as the killer, and T.J. is forced into hiding (wearing ridiculous disguises).

To solve the crime and prove to a determined police detective, Gaspar Voorsboch, that his friend is innocent, Deuce begins contacting the long list of women who last solicited the services of the deceased male prostitutes. Along the way, he falls for the detective's niece, a beautiful girl named Eva who suffers from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. Eva's behaviors are almost as strange as the women Deuce must visit to stop Amsterdam's man-whore murderer.

 
Despite the film's title, Deuce Bigalow actually has no interest in being a male prostitute. When a child accuses him of still following that profession, he says, "I'm not a man-whore. ... I stopped man-whoring when I met my wife."

Deuce doesn't have sex with the women he meets as he looks for clues; instead, he goes out with them and tries to help them. Without exception, these women have physical abnormalities or deformities that have left them ostracized from society. Deuce accepts them, tries to minimize their problems and helps them to have some dignity. In the end, he tells a crowd of people at the annual Man-Whore Awards that what a woman really wants is for a man to ask her how she's feeling and how her day was, and then to listen to her. Gigolos, he says, are just ripping women off.

When T.J. is about to go to jail, he asks Deuce to tell T.J.'s mother how sorry he is for how his life turned out.

 
T.J. wears a shirt with the word "Mecca" on it. After being released from a jail full of men with not-so-kind intentions, he says, "Thank You, Jesus."

 
While the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system is sometimes not very helpful, occasionally its descriptions of objectionable content hit the nail right on the head. This is one of those cases. Among other things, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo earned its R-rating for "pervasive strong crude and sexual humor." The opening camera shot shows the bare backside of a male prostitute hurrying to put his pants on before his client's husband returns home. She tells him, "Thanks for last night"—words that are then repeated by the maid and the male security guard. That scene puts us on notice that hetero- and homosexual humor is all fair game. Obviously, the film has no qualms about exploiting both—with gusto.

Constant slang references to male and female genitalia (including an especially vulgar term) bombard viewers. One of the mildest such moments is when a man is introduced to Deuce as "the gigolo with the most below." Most of the rest of these references—at least 50 by my count—are simply too graphic to print. Other dialogue between characters refers to oral sex, homosexual sex and even bestiality.

Two scenes show a female weathercaster on TV taking her shirt and bra off as she does her job. Four prostitutes in lingerie are seen dancing in store-front windows in the red-light district of Amsterdam. Another buxom young woman wearing a wet T-shirt with no bra presses her chest against a window as she cleans it—leaving little to the imagination. Deuce ends up on the set of a porn movie where men are lined up to have sex with a woman who's shown in lingerie. Eva tries to tempt Deuce into bed wearing only a skimpy bra and panties. A scene at Man-Whore University includes a very brief glimpse of the side of a woman's breast. Two of the women Deuce meets with go to a plastic surgeon for breast enlargement (no nudity). Twice we see men in G-strings.

One of the women Deuce visits who desperately wants a child forces him to wear a diaper and bonnet, then asks him to perform a sexual act (which, thankfully, doesn't happen). After eating a marijuana-laced brownie, Deuce hallucinates and imagines a woman in a painting inviting him to bite her chest, which he does (no nudity). He comes out of his trance to find that he's actually biting T.J.'s chest.

Throughout the film, T.J. insists that he's not gay. Still, he continually ends up in bizarre, disgusting sexual situations with dead male prostitutes. In the end, he decides to become a pimp for gay male prostitutes.

 
There's a surprising amount of violence, most of which is played as slapstick humor. A dolphin bites an elderly man in the crotch and an older woman rides a dolphin that rams into a buoy. A midget head-butts Deuce in the crotch. Several characters are tossed (unharmed) through glass windows. Deuce has a flashback to his wife being killed by a shark; they're in the ocean together in a scene that recalls the movie Open Water when she's pulled under. Deuce carries her prosthetic leg on an airplane, where it smacks five people in the face as he walks down the aisle. A woman who announces she "loves President Bush" is hit with a brick in the head and flips into a canal. To prove that a particular prostitute is indeed dead, Deuce and T.J. take turns dropping a remote control, a cuckoo clock and a bowling ball on the corpse's head.

Male prostitutes are murdered in different ways, including one whose Ferrari is pushed into the path of an oncoming train and another who is locked inside a tanning bed that fries him. A man Deuce has dinner with chokes to death because Deuce thinks his panicked gesticulations are a description of oral sex.

The most gratuitously violent scene is arguable when a cat attacks T.J. as he's going to the bathroom, affixing himself to the man's crotch. T.J. flails around the room, then begins slamming the door on the cat to get him to let go.

A car chase ends with a mild accident, and Eva crashes her scooter. Gaspar threatens Deuce with a gun, and later the two spar with swords. Deuce accidentally sets off a large explosion.

 
Profanity flows freely in this sequel, including about half-a-dozen incidences of the s-word and at least four uses of the f-word (once sexually). God's name is misused four times, each in combination with "d--n." Other vulgarities ("f-gg-t," "d--k," "p---," etc.) are spoken a handful of times. Two terms are so crude I won't even bleep them here. Almost two dozen other mild profanities top off this foul flick.

 
A long scene in one of Amsterdam's infamous "coffee houses," where some mind-altering drugs are legal, shows patrons smoking marijuana and hashish. T.J. is rolling a joint when a police officer comes over to light it for him. This scene portrays Holland as an "enlightened" place where even the cops will help you get high. Deuce gives the prosthetic leg of his dead wife to an elderly Dutch woman who's missing one of hers. Instead of using it to walk, however, she turns it into a giant marijuana bong. Police tell a man unloading a truckload of marijuana bales that he'll have to move because it's a "No Marijuana Unloading Zone." Several scenes depict characters drinking wine (or possibly hard liquor) and smoking.

 
T.J. spills some french fries in a toilet, then eats them. Eva's obsessive-compulsive disorder is extremely exaggerated for supposedly humorous effect. Deuce eats dinner with a woman who has a hole in her throat, presumably due to cancer. When she drinks wine, it squirts Deuce in the face. Smoking a cigarette yields a similar result. One of the male prostitutes says in a TV interview that his mother suggested his career. Two men are shown urinating in the street, and another defecates on the sidewalk.

 
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo feels like a Saturday Night Live skit run amok. Freed from the decency constraints of broadcast television, SNL alum Rob Schneider (who co-wrote) hasn't missed a single opportunity to go for cheap laughs using stale, sick sex gags. (One of the "man-whores" is named Assapopoulos Mariolis, for example.) But the depth of story line—if it's even worthy of such a term—is barely deep enough to sustain 10 minutes, let alone 83.

As the film started, I braced myself for a barrage of offensive material—and it rained down just as I expected. After about the fifth genital-related joke, it left the arena of the offensive and crossed over into the land of the mind-numbing. For me, the overall effect of so much sexualized humor was not outrage (though that would be warranted) as much as sheer boredom. When every line of dialogue is working this hard to shock you, it has exactly the opposite effect. That's not a good thing, especially for teens, who are in the process of developing their sexual opinions and moral beliefs. (I won't even begin to examine the dangers associated with a culture being trained to yawn its way through an hour-and-a-half of deviant sexual content.)

Ultimately, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo mocks and degrades human sexuality from start to finish. God's design for sex between a man and a woman in marriage is a thing of breathtaking beauty and wonder. In contrast, it's hard for me to think of a movie I've seen recently that reduces sexuality to something so ugly. Schneider's vision of the world seems confined to what he sees when he looks up from the bottom of the toilet bowl. And despite his leading character's sermonette urging men to listen to women instead of treating them as sex objects, nothing can redeem the sheer badness—any way you want to evaluate it—of this movie.

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Well, Um, I just don't know what to say.  Except maybe that these folks are giving the movie MUCH MUCH more attention that it deserves.   Perhaps taking it a hair seriously?
-Ed

[lester1/2jr]

imagine having to sit next to this pervert!

"T.J. spills some french fries in a toilet, then eats them. Eva's obsessive-compulsive disorder is extremely exaggerated for supposedly humorous effect. Deuce eats dinner with a woman who has a hole in her throat, presumably due to cancer. When she drinks wine, it squirts Deuce in the face. Smoking a cigarette yields a similar result. One of the male prostitutes says in a TV interview that his mother suggested his career. Two men are shown urinating in the street, and another defecates on the sidewalk. "

[LH-C]

These people are idiots who are to be ignored. If only they could ignore movies that offend them. Works for me!

[lester1/2jr]

it is similar in length to a badmovies.org review.  and detail.

[AndyC]

What gets me is that the objectionable content is described in such thorough detail. The review comes off a lot more filthy than the movie probably is. Funnier too. Hearing cheap, stupid gags described in such a serious, clinical fashion actually adds something to them.

[Mr_Vindictive]

LOL

Thanks for posting that one Lester.  I don't know the last time I laughed so hard while reading a review.

You know these people put up these reviews just so they can go see the movies that others might think are objectionable.  They want other "morally right" people to think highly of them, yet they want to go see these "vile" films.  So what do they do?  Put up a website that allows them to watch the films as long as they bash them afterwards.

God Bless This Land Of Hypocrisy!

[trekgeezer]

They are either stupid enough to think that people are racing out to see a POS like this or the reviewer just has an excuse to go watch something that is 'offensive'.

[odinn7]

That was a good review...a real good review. I certainly did enjoy it thoroughly. Not that I would see this movie anyway but at least I got a laugh out of the review. I decided to check their reviews on some other movies...Sin City for one. Oh, they LOVED that one too.
As was said, I think it's all an excuse for them to sit and watch a movie just so they can "save" us from the evil.

[Derf]

I'm not going to get into this discussion beyond this post. These guys are very conservative, but they are reviewing movies for a very select audience: conservative Christians. I see no real point in ridiculing the "hypocrites" for trying to help parents who are actually concerned about what their kids might see (heaven knows there have been plenty of people here griping about parents taking small kids to R-rated movies). I can't imagine why they would review movies like this that are obviously adult-oriented, but I doubt the reasons stated here are very accurate.

As for the review itself, yes, it takes the movie far too seriously. Laugh all you want at that aspect. Hey, it's a free country; laugh at whatever you want to. I don't mean to be too harsh on anyone here; overall, as has been said in another topic, you guys are generally a very civil lot. I just don't see why something like this has to crop up every once in a while, with everyone ridiculing Christians. To use the logic already used by LH-C, if you don't like it, read something else.

[trekgeezer]

Ridiculiing Focus on the Family is not ridiculing Christians. Anyone with a ounce of sense could tell that this movie is not something you want your kids to see (it has the word gigolo in the title).


I personally did not read much of the review because I already knew what was in it. Educating parents is not what this group is about.  You can find out what is objectionable about a movie without it requiring a blow by blow review.

I will stop at that because I don't want this to degenerate into a political debate. There are other places for doing that.

[odinn7]

I was not ridiculing Christians at all. I WAS ridiculing people in general. I have no bias when it comes to religion, race, whatever...I ridicule people as people.
A fairly obvious movie title like Deuce Bigelow: European Gigilo or Sin City (as I pointed out earlier) are certainly not movies you would want to send a kid to. I don't need anyone to tell me that movies with titles like that are inapropriate for kids.



Post Edited (08-18-05 09:56)

[ulthar]

odinn7 wrote:

> A fairly obvious movie title like Deuce Bigelow: European
> Gigilo or Sin City (as I pointed out earlier) are certainly not
> movies you would want to send a kid to. I don't need anyone to
> tell me that movies with titles like that are inapropriate for
> kids.
>

Well, yeah, that and the R rating.  Between those two pieces of information, one does kinda get the hint these are not for chillens.

I will say, however, that I kinda like reviews like that for one purpose: social research.  A reviewer that counts the times in a movie a given word is said or how many times bare breasts are shown is providing basic data to study trends in how movies are made, what they portray, changes in the rating systems, etc.  This could be of interest (or not).

[raj]

trek_geezer wrote:

> Ridiculiing Focus on the Family is not ridiculing Christians.
> Anyone with a ounce of sense could tell that this movie is not
> something you want your kids to see (it has the word gigolo in
> the title).

This movie is not something you want your kids (or yourself) to see:  it stars Rob Schneider.  (though at least it's not Pauly Shore)

[AndyC]

Agreed. I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing the movie for content you find objectionable. But who is going to protect people from objectionable content of the review? If people are going to be offended by the filthy gags in this movie, do they really want to read about each and every one described in loving detail? Strikes me as a bit strange.

Of course, some of the wording seems really unprofessional, as though somebody with no training wrote it. A lot of it is just a blow by blow - "and then this happened and then this happened and then he said this..." - with an opinion thrown in here and there.

There were even times when I almost thought the reviewer was going to start praising the movie, when Deuce is not having sex, being sensitive and going out with various female outcasts. Very, very confusing.