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| Joke's on you, Batman. |
Directed by: Martin Brest
Produced by: Martin Brest, Casey Silver
Written by: Martin Brest
Budget: $75,600,000
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bartha
Larry Gigli (Affleck), an enforcer for the mob, is ordered by his superiors to kidnap the mentally challenged younger brother of a federal prosecutor. After successfully kidnapping the brother, Brian (Bartha), Gigli learns that he'll be gaining a partner on his job: another enforcer who calls herself Ricki.
Gigli, being Affleck, tries to put the moves on Ricki, only to simmer in resentment when she reveals that she's a lesbian.
Wacky events happen, seriously dark moments happen, and it goes on for far too long.
"Gigli" has a reputation as a bad movie, and for good reason. The film had some heavy publicity on its release because "Bennifer" was the cultural relationship of import at the time, though that stopped it from earning any sort of return. The acting between the involved leads is bizarrely passionless, the tone goes all over the place, and it drags like you wouldn't believe.
Apparently the director and the studios butted heads continuously over pretty much everything and supposedly there were rewrites made to cash in on the celebrity relationship. Considering this was the last thing Brest has directed, and compared to the rest of his work, I wonder what Brest originally meant for this one.
The Good
It reminded me of the episode of South Park, "Fatt But and Pancake Head," and sometimes that made me chuckle.
The Bad
First, this movie is far longer than it needed to be. Gigli feels like a 30 minute concept dragged all the way out to two hours. Every scene feels like it's minutes longer than it needs to be, with multiple shots of people's faces staring. There's something to be said for decompression, but you have to have some weight behind it. At least make the characters interesting so I can enjoy the parts where they talk. Unfortunately, they aren't and I don't.
This was Justin Bartha's first major role. I don't know how he recovered from this and got the part in National Treasure. His portrayal of "brain damaged" is just as tasteful as you'd expect. Lopez and Affleck seem like they've had their respective dials set to 30%. Nothing on screen comes together in a way that affects me emotionally, and that's partially because the tone between scenes will change drastically from comedy to romance to dark mobster film.
There's nothing endearing about Affleck's character, and it reminds me why no one liked him for a really, really long time. It felt really strange watching this so soon after DC released their new trailer for Bats v Supes.
The movie and its characters are offensive to everyone, and I don't think it's appropriate in this case to say that it was a product of its time. Friends was a product of its time. This is a movie forgetting to make the oaf a loveable one.
The Rest
I could see this plot as a Cohen Brothers movie, maybe. If the script was rewritten so it wasn't garbage and the actors replaced by competent ones.
I feel like Mac from Always Sunny would enjoy this movie.
Should You Watch It?
No, but that was never going to not be the answer. Let's be real here.
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