Review of Gigli (2003) by Dammy G — 27 Jun 2013

When Conan O'Brien just has to say the name of your movie to get a big laugh in his opening monologue every night for two months, you know you've screwed up. It was for that exact reason that I set out to watch this flop for the first time since it came out, ten long years ago, and it was so much worse than I could have expected.

Usually films that are bad, and feature big stars, at least have a gimmick, maybe some off-color jokes, or have a bloated budget, but there's no reason for this unmitigated tripe. There is no budget, the script is atrocious, and the characters are either one sided, conceited, or plain dumb.

The premise alone is staggeringly awful: a very low level mobster (Ben Affleck a gangster? Really?) has to kidnap the brother of a federal prosecutor, who happens to be mentally challenged. That alone should stop you if you are reading the script.

He does so with minimal effort, which is strange, because you would think there would be a lot of security for someone so vulnerable. Then waltzes in the other lead, Jennifer Lopez, as a hired gun, who happens to be a lesbian.

I will say that at least they represent her as someone who deals with the traps and tribulations of relationships and comes out the other side the same as any hetero, when speaking about her relationship with another woman.

Still, her sexuality, which is dealt with right off the bat, is pivoted once she starts hanging around Affleck's character. The mentally challenged character is also handled poorly, as he oftentimes rings his hands wildly and asks to go meet girls at the "Baywatch" time and again.

Justin Bartha is in this role, and it baffles me that it doesn't follow him around the same way the others have suffered for this flop. There are some brief cameos from Christopher Walken and Al Pacino that are twenty times more entertaining, but most of this film concerns this strange love story between the goon and the lesbian.

They barely leave the apartment, talk to anyone, or do much of anything (if cutting a dead guy's thumb off doesn't count). Most of that doesn't even matter, because the background score for this film is so loud and obnoxious you can't hear the actor's voices over it, which makes this feel as cheap and sleazy as the rest of the movie.

It's so pathetically contrived and icky at all times, and not one person can justify to me why this film needed to be made.