[Freya-dæg] A Look Back at Gigli ("...it rhymes with really.")

{Some off-screen tenderness. Photo by Mel/Getty Images.}

Introduction
The Plot
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing






Introduction

Nine years ought to be enough time to give you some perspective on a piece of art, right? Even if it was considered utterly terrible when it came out.

That's the thinking behind this review of Gigli, the 2003 flop starring Ben Affleck (as the title character Larry Gigli), Jennifer Lopez (as Ricky), and Justin Bartha (as Baywatch-obsessed Brian). So, now that it's 2012, is it possible to view this movie as anything other than the utter waste of time that critics regarded it as those 9 years ago? Let's find out.

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The Plot

Gigli follows Larry Gigli as he follows through on a peculiar job. His employer, Louis (played by Lenny Venito) asks him to essentially kidnap and keep someone's kid brother (Brian) for the purpose of extortion. But, Larry's kind of a screw-up, and so Louis also assigns Ricky to the job, without Larry's knowing it. This completes the patchwork nuclear family that is the movie's focus, and the two navigate the difficulties of keeping a young man with "mental deficiencies" occupied and of their own emotional baggage while trying to complete their job.

Now, for the purpose of marketing, the movie's classed as a "romantic comedy." It does have the basic requirements to fit this bill, namely, two characters who bond over a weird/comic situation and end the movie closer than they were at the start. But, the relationship between these two isn't quite romantic in the way that the genre designation implies.

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The Good

Nonetheless, the movie features two cameos that are worth seeing.

{Photo from UGO.com.}

Christopher Walken steps in as an info-dumping cop who reveals to Gigli and Ricky that they're holding the brother of a federal prosecutor. To his credit, Walken also delivers one of the only laughs of the movie with his surreal line about what might happen if you put pie à la mode on your head: "your tongue would slap your brains out trying to get to it."

{Photo from the Simply Shaka blog}

Al Pacino comes on later in the movie, as the character that the kidnapping is supposed to help. His performance strangely mixes an over the top style with a cool, understated demeanor. His is also among the darker scenes of the movie as he blows someone's brains out and the camera pleasantly zooms into a fish nibbling away at the detritus. It's a curious shot that stands as an apt metaphor for the movie - it turns your brain into fish-food, if you let it.

The movie also co-stars Affleck's naked torso and music video levels of J-Lo's bare skin.

However, cameos - especially short, single-scene deals - and cheese/beefcake are not as potent a force for good as they could be. Especially not alone.

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The Bad

Let's start with the premise. The idea of two mismatched mob contractors being assigned to watch a young man who is mentally disabled sounds strangely like the next generation of reality TV: a couple would be paired up, and then would adopt a child with a disability for a few days, and the audience at home would sit back and watch it all unfold. And unfold it does in the movie, as antics follow and, of course, we're treated to some moments that are supposed to be endearing.

Unfortunately, these almost endearing scenes end with weird lines like this about where they film Baywatch "That's where the sex is," or about what looking at the women of Bay Watch does to Brian: "they make my penis sneeze." Curious, sure, but the stuff of a rom com?

After all, one of the key parts of the movie is the romance between Gigli and Ricky.

To be fair, it seems like writer/director/producer Martin Brest was trying something new here. Trying to shake up the romantic comedy genre.

For, unlike in other romantic comedies where the person "in control" of the relationship shifts from one act (or even scene) to the next with comic results, Gigli puts Ricky into a position of control as firm as her own, co-starring, butt.

Sure, it's refreshing to see a movie centered on a romance where the woman is in control. But adding Ricky's lesbianism and dissatisfaction with men, and Gigli's being so caught up in his own masculinity that it would make overly macho characters like Vigoro of Skies of Arcadia wonder about what he's hiding brings the movie's romantic aspect tumbling down.

{Vigoro, showing Gigli how it's done.}

Further, because the center of control in the Ricky/Gigli relationship never really changes there's very little sense of an interplay between the two characters.

For example, when Louis tells Gigli that they'll need to cut off and mail out Brian's finger to show that they're serious, Ricky takes Gigli aside to chat with him about it. This leads to her asking if he's with her and he says "sure," which leads to her saying that "sure" isn't enough of a commitment and that he should say "yes." So she asks if he's for not cutting off Brian's thumb again, and rather than trying to take back some power in the relationship, or at least being a little flippant, Gigli exhales a breathy "yes."

The scene's potential for laughs is lost, Ricky is shown to have power *over* Gigli rather than to be sharing it with him and the romantic tone is irreversibly set.

It doesn't help matters that throughout the movie the two have their defenses up and bristling, Gigli showing far more signs of slackening than Ricky by the movie's end. Gigli's dopey-ness around Ricky is in character, but the dope being romantically entangled with the powerful woman doesn't really make for a romantic movie scenario. It's better suited to a Saturday morning cartoon.

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Judgment

I can appreciate the unique weirdness of the premise. And the genuinely entertaining cameos. But the core of the movie is off kilter. The world wasn't ready for a rom-com where the female character can seriously say "I thought you wanted to be my bitch" in 2003, and it still doesn't seem to be in 2012.

So, Freya, cut off the thumbs so that Walken and Pacino can be saved, but leave the rest to further rot.

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Closing

Next week, check back for a stream of consciousness take on freelance writing, an essay about some of the newest news, and for a review of the 1995 Jeff Goldblum horror flick, Hideaway.

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