GIGLI (2003)
ROMANCE | COMEDY | CRIME
Larry Gigli (Ben Affleck) is a mob enforcer who’s been set his most important task yet: babysitting a mentally-challenged kid in order to extort a federal prosecutor. Larry’s boss doesn’t think he is capable of doing it on his own on account of Larry being an idiot, so he sends in Ricki (Jennifer Lopez), another enforcer who uses her looks and brains rather than brawn to get things done. Larry is a misogynist who seems to think he’s in a Scorsese movie, while Ricki’s philosophical musings belong in the vagina monologues. If you think they are completely incompatible romantically, then boy, are you in for a surprise!
This weekend was Valentine’s, a nonsense holiday that doesn’t mean anything. The way myself and Olivia choose to celebrate it is to subvert it, so we have a tradition of watching a terrible romance movie. We’ve seen some doozies over the years, and Gigli (rhymes with “really”) has been in the mix for a while now. It has a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but can it really be that bad? It’s written and directed by Martin Brest, the man who gave us Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Midnight Run (1988), and Scent of a Woman (1992), and as the hottest Hollywood couple at that time, surely Affleck and J.Lo’s chemistry would overcome any other shortcomings… Right?
TURKEY TIME, GOBBLE, GOBBLE
+ The idea of doing a take on Midnight Run as a romance isn’t a bad one, so writer/director Martin Brest was on to something (though also including a Rain Man (1988) style subplot only compounded other problems in the story). Look, let’s not beat around the bush here, this is not good, but it’s not as horrendously bad as I had expected.
+ As individual performances, Affleck is okay as the dumb heavy (though he does struggle with the Brooklyn accent), and J.Lo certainly has charisma. Justin Bartha gives a committed performance as Brian, though he does break one very important rule… Also, Christopher Walken and Al Pacino show very briefly to pick up a pay check, and they look like they’re having fun. I’m glad someone was…
TURKEY, GOBBLE, VOMIT
- Where to begin? An overarching problem here is the tone, which is all over the place, and this unevenness is never more evident than in how the two leads approach their characters. Affleck is playing it like a broad comedy, but J.Lo approaches it like it’s a drama. It feels like they’re performing in different films, so there is no sense of the characters truly interacting in the same world, hence their famous lack of chemistry.
- J.Lo’s Ricki makes no sense. From the moment she appears at Larry’s door with her just-stepped-out-of-a-salon hair, her character wasn't believable. Then, as we get to know her, we find out that she’s an intellectual, yoga-performing pacifist who works as a mob enforcer… What?!
- While it’s abundantly clear why Larry falls for Ricki, there is no way in hell that she would fall for him. Not a chance! Not only is he an idiot, but he’s a toxic wannabe alpha male, yet we’re supposed to believe that he has some deeper quality that makes her “hop the fence” and give up being a lesbian for him. It has a nasty tang of male wish-fulfilment about it, and no amount of J.Lo expounding the virtues of her vagina while doing sexy yoga gets around that.
- The story is a mess. The stakes are nebulous at best, and the pacing is all over the place. Christopher Walken shows up and makes a menacing speech but is never heard from again, and while Pacino gets slightly more to do, his appearance feels very much like a “thanks for the Oscar, Martin” favour to a friend.
- This is an interesting one for legacy, as it gets its highest score here because it’s so notoriously bad! It’s also sad, as Martin Brest, who clearly had some form as a filmmaker, pretty much retired after this.
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How do my ratings hold up? Is it more of a movie or is it a film? Let me know in the comments below! If you like what I’m trying to do here, please like, subscribe, restack, and share.
To think that this was the film to end the career of Martin Brest. I remember reading an interview with him a few years ago where he said he'd still love to direct, but the offers just aren't there.