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Gigli
**1/2
Cinema
Review - October 7, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA.
121 minutes. Written and directed by Martin Brest. Produced by Martin Brest,
Casey Silver. Starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bartha, Lenny
Venito, Christopher Walken, Lainie Kazan, Al Pacino.
Ah, "Gigli". The turkey of the year,
which actually contains the line "It's turkey time!" And how the tabloids
did mock and larf, and poke sticks and act like pricks. A couple of writers
have come to its defence, but mostly it's been open season -- grappling like
pre-teens let loose at the keyboard, they've been ripping it out of all of
this movie, making laundry lists of stupid complaints to one-up each other
with venom.
The biggest criticism is the most inane: That
"Gigli" is a vanity project for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, and they're
so in luuurve they have to rub it in our faces. Never mind that Ben-Af and
J-Lo only got together while making this film. Or, as a handful of people
have been good enough to remember, it was Halle Berry first cast in the part
played by Lopez. And don't bother to mention Martin Brest, the guy who actually
made the movie.
Martin Brest is both great and unsung. I forgot
to make that clear in my retrospective on "Beverly Hills Cop" -- I didn't
mean to apologise for that movie and rant about how great Eddie Murphy was;
I meant to tell you all about Brest, and his crackling, radiating visuals,
and his fascination with crossing-the-road scenes, and how he's one of
Hollywood's best craftsmen, who made "Scent of a Woman", "Midnight Run" and
"Meet Joe Black". If "Gigli" belongs to anyone, it's Brest. The guy doesn't
make a lot of films, and this is the first one he's both written and directed
since "Going in Style" in 1979. It means something to him.
But to think about the motives of Brest would
actually require some film criticism -- it's easier to just slam the celebrity
couple, and complain about their lack of 'chemistry'. Of course they don't
have 'chemistry' in this movie, at least not in the shallow flirty way that
people mean when they make that objection. This is not a fluffy romantic
comedy. It's a character study about a guy who wants to act macho, and the
story of a girl who doesn't put up with his crap, making him look inside
himself.
Affleck is the title character, Larry Gigli --
pronounced 'jee-lee', rhymes with 'really'. He's a thug for hire, whose job
this time round involves kidnapping the brother of a federal prosecutor and
holding him for ransom until the charges are dropped on a kingpin gangster.
Lopez plays a tough-talking lesbian who calls herself Ricki; she's another
contractor brought onto the case, because the guy in charge is a goofball
called Louis (Lenny Venito) who doesn't trust anyone and likes to bark
orders.
There are problems with this set-up, for sure.
It doesn't make much sense for Louis to hire Gigli in the first place, if
he doesn't think he's up to the job. The film deals with that later on, but
it should be more clear that it's about low-rent hoodlums screwing up, instead
of just feeling inauthentic. A bigger worry comes in the character of the
kidnap victim: As played by Justin Bartha, he's a retarded kid who likes
to squeal a lot, call up Australia for the weather reports, obsess about
"Baywatch" and generally get on Affleck's nerves. He jumps up and down in
the background of scenes -- annoyingly. Occasionally there are sentimental
scenes where he'll confide something to Affleck, and Affleck will get all
tender, and orchestral music will swell up on the soundtrack --
mawkishly.
As Bartha keeps winding Affleck up and sending
him into fits of four-letter words, Lopez sits in the background, reading
books on New Age self-help and rolling her eyes at the mess. Affleck is attracted
to Lopez, but he can only express himself in cheesy come-ons; the sexual
frustration inspires a lot of verbal battles, including the now famous speech,
actually very provocative and entertaining, about why the vagina is an
unbeatable, perfectly crafted piece of human anatomy.
This is a gangster comedy, and a movie about an
antagonistic relationship that sometimes dances along romantic lines, but
mainly leads to the personal growth of the Affleck character. Brest is trying
to make a brilliant dialogue comedy, and throw in an emotional centre by
ripping off "Rain Man". The retarded guy stuff doesn't work at all; it's
an embarrassment, actually, and it leads to one long scene on the beach that's
ghastly and tasteless in its wrong-headed cloying for emotion.
But Affleck and Lopez are great. He has the courage
to give a performance that is messy, arrogant and intentionally stupid, but
still somehow kinda loveable, just because the character is trying so hard,
and has so little clue about the dangers of his own ego. She acts detached
and superior, slowly and patiently -- we laugh, because we can feel her shaking
her head even when she sits there doing nothing.
And "Gigli" has cool, breezy music, beautiful
bright photography and cameos from Christopher Walken and Al Pacino. The
scene with Pacino is especially effective -- he comes on like he's here just
for the star turn, starts acting with unfocused tomfoolery, and ends up creating
one of the tensest scenes I've seen in a long time, as a man at once icy
and unwieldy.
"Gigli" isn't a good movie. The stuff with Bartha
makes it messy, and some of the dialogue is too lyrically clever for its
own damn good. But is this the worst film of the year, or one of the worst
of all time? Not at all. It tries a valiant effort to be smart and edgy,
and feels like something that's always edging at greatness but never quite
managing to break on through. A failure, I'll admit. But not deserving of
bitter childish insults, especially when the career of Martin Brest will
end up caught in the crossfire. To those who know who they are: Shame on
you all.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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