Gigli Review

Martin Brest made Midnight Run and Scent of a Woman, and the craft floor here is higher than the reputation suggests. Robert Elswit shoots it cleanly, the Los Angeles locations are chosen with an eye, and Justin Bartha does careful work as Brian, a role the script treats badly.

Everything above that floor fails. The film began as a crime story, and after poor test screenings the criminal plot was compressed and the romance pushed forward, which leaves two engines running against each other. Kidnapping stakes evaporate whenever the leads talk, and the leads talk constantly. Ben Affleck's Larry is written as a man who narrates his own toughness, so his dialogue arrives in monologues that explain what the scene has already shown. Jennifer Lopez's Ricki is introduced as a lesbian, argues the point at length in one long seduction scene, and then falls for Larry anyway. That is the choice most reviewers could not get past, and it remains the worst idea in the film.

Brian's disability is used for jokes the film believes are affectionate, and they land as neither funny nor kind. Christopher Walken and Al Pacino each turn up for a single scene pitched in a register nothing around it shares, and neither appearance moves the story. The point of failure is tonal: menace, then charm, then sentiment, inside the same ten minutes, none of it earned. It took worst picture at the Razzies and Brest has not directed since, which is the real cost of the whole episode.