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Gigli
2003 - R - 120 Mins.
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| Director: Martin Brest | | Producer: John Hardy, Casey Silver, Martin Brest | | Written By: Martin Brest | | Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bartha, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken |
| Review by: Joe Rickey |
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A hitman (Ben Affleck) is teamed with a female gangster (Jennifer Lopez) against his will to kidnap the mentally disabled brother of a federal prosecutor in this attempt at a romantic comedy with bite directed by Martin Brest (The Scent of a Woman). The much talked about recent engagement of Affleck and Lopez has had this film getting more press lately than it really deserves. They reportedly met during the filming of Gigli, so that adds to the press. The resulting film is a complete mess of a film, to say the least.
The success of the film is anchored by whether the two leads have good chemistry together, which they do not. They are completely wooden in their performances as Lopez and Affleck seem to slumming their way through the entire film as if they were held at gunpoint and forced to do the film and would rather be anywhere else. Lopez seems to be half asleep throughout the film, slurring her words and talking in a very slow manner that makes her scenes drag even more than the rest of the film since she can’t seem to get her point across in a concise period of time. Affleck doesn’t fare much better although he shows flashes of charisma that unfortunately don’t last more than a few moments at a time. Only the one-scene cameos of such people as Al Pacino and Christopher Walken show any sort of fire because they are such talented performers that even the worst material is elevated in their presence.
The script by Brest is full of swear words which seem to suggest just how desperate he was to spice up the bland storyline. Very little background is given to any of the characters so that their fates don’t matter to us. Brest also directs with a heavy hand that causes the film to drag much more than a supposedly light-hearted film would like to. The film is edited with a chainsaw as if there was a last ditch attempt to repair what is essentially irreparable.
Overall, Gigli is a giant misfire of a film by all involved. It is stunningly bad at times that you almost feel sorry for those who are stuck acting in the film but then you remember that they originally accepted the sentence of death by appearing in this miscalculation in the first place. Gigli is easily the worst film of the year thus far and it’ll take a miracle for any film to surpass it in sheer awfulness.
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