At least I can keep this review rather short. “Gigli” had no recognizable plot. There’s something about two hit men (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez – yeah, right) kidnapping a mentally challenged teenager (Justin Bartha) who is the younger brother of the Federal Prosecutor in charge of bringing Larry Gigli’s (Affleck) boss’ boss to trial. Got that? Don’t worry, you won’t be quizzed later. You can forget the plot, it means absolutely nothing to the film.
The main problems (that’s plural) include the severe case of overacting that hit the set right as the film was being made, a hit woman who isn’t in the least bit tough, a hit man who’s a throw-back to some bad TV movie from the 80s, dialogue that makes you want to heave your popcorn bucket at the screen, ludicrous unrelenting close-ups (if I wanted to know how many hairs Affleck has in his nose, I would have looked it up on the Internet), a kid whose problems seem to change from Tourette’s to Autism to whatever moves the plot along, every character telling Jennifer Lopez how beautiful she is, Lopez actually uttering the line, "It's turkey time, gobble, gobble," Christopher Walken’s almost indecipherable monologue, Al Pacino as a pony-tailed mob boss, the suicide attempt of Ricki’s (Lopez) lesbian lover in a bizarre scene that had no business being in the film, and oh yeah, the whole lesbian issue. Sure, one look at Gigli’s bulging muscles and she’s so gaga she forgets she’s a lesbian (or maybe she saw Affleck in “Chasing Amy” - another movie where he pursues a lesbian - and got confused). And the sex scene! Man, I can do without ever having to sit through something that torturous again. How could so much off screen heat generate not even a flicker on the screen? The vow this couple should exchange is to promise to never step foot in front of a movie camera together again as long as they both shall live.
Leaving the film my husband turned to me and said, “This wasn’t the worst film of the year.” True. I thought “Gods and Generals” was worse. But I walked out of “Gods and Generals” before it was over and had to sit through the entire 2 hours of “Gigli.” Tooth extraction without Novocain would have been less painful.
GRADE: D
“Gigli” was directed by Martin Brest (full cast and crew list) and is rated R for sexual content, pervasive language and brief strong violence.
