Gigli: Movie & DVD Review (2003)

(Originally published 2003)

When you think about it, what Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have given us over the past year is something to behold if not exactly to treasure--a much ballyhooed romance, a willingness to canoodle on cue, an eagerness to please.

They're like a couple of well-groomed pets, two reasonably talented superstars from modest roots who enjoy the limelight so much, they’ve wagged their tails into a sea of overexposure.

Through their own tireless self-promotion backed by an insatiable public demand, we've learned more about them than we probably ever wanted to know, such banalities as how Ben met Jen, how Ben proposed to Jen, how Jen dumped men to become Ben's Jen.

And let's not forget her engagement ring, the size and color of which made these one-syllable wonders tabloid fodder for months.

It's been a well-choreographed whirlwind, this courtship, with new details of its progress having a way of arriving just in time to boost interest in, say, her new CD, his movie "Daredevil," her movie “Maid in Manhattan,” and now in their first movie together, "Gigli."

The film, a romantic comedy gangster drama set in L.A., suggests that all this exposure finally is taking its toll--in “Gigli’s” opening weekend, the movie made a paltry $3.8 million, ruinous considering the film’s $50 million price tag and the countless additional millions it took to market it.

As directed by Martin Brest from his own script, the film failed to connect not only because of a potential Ben-Jen fatigue, but because of its story, which is lame, and the fact that the movie is never anything more than a self-aware vanity piece, one wholly lacking in energy and chemistry, in spite of the love that apparently bloomed on set.

In the film, Affleck is Larry Gigli (rhymes with “really”), a mama’s boy cum mob enforcer who falls hard for Ricki (Lopez), a fellow mob enforcer hired to keep an eye on Larry while Larry keeps an eye on Brian (Justin Bartha), the kidnapped, mentally challenged brother of an influential judge who’s out to put the screws to another mobster.

Don’t ask.

What matters here is that Larry falls hard for Ricki in spite of knowing that Ricki is a lesbian. He sees in her the “whole package,” a knockout woman who has her own mind, her own look, and especially her own ideas about why a woman’s vagina is superior to a man’s penis, as we learn during one colorful exchange that leads to Lopez gobbling like a turkey.

What ensues is a bizarre cross between "Rain Man" and Affleck's breakout film, "Chasing Amy,” but without the substance. Cameos by Christopher Walken, Al Pacino and Lainie Kazan add interest, but only because they wrestle each scene to the ground and thus divert attention from its preening stars.

Affleck and Lopez have their moments in “Gigli” and they can be appealing in the right roles, but with each moving away from the solid choices that began their careers, they’re testing the limits of what their fans and moviegoers will support.

Grade: D+