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Friday, August 1, 2003
We're happy that Ben and J. Lo at least found off-screen chemistry
Ben Affleck swaggers under a crooked, cocky grin as the self-proclaimed "sultan of slick" Larry Gigli ("rhymes with really"). At times a calmly effective debt collector with minor league style, at other times a gangster wannabe with a short fuse and delusions of adequacy, this thickheaded underworld contractor thinks he's the Springsteen of Italian American street thugs.
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He winds up more of a Sonny Bono when his cockroach of a loan shark boss (Lenny Venito) foists upon him a sassy Cher -- actually a yoga-practicing lesbian named Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) -- and turns his solo act into a duet.
In the course of their joint operation -- kidnapping a mentally disabled kid (Justin Bartha) to extort his powerful brother -- the two spar in sexual arguments that cross the line of inexplicability, and they learn to love the big kid like a pet. It's hard to tell what writer/director Martin Brest ("Meet Joe Black") had in mind when he concocted his odd couple romance.
Affleck preens like a thick-headed pretty-boy yo-yoing between personality extremes while Lopez fares better as the New Age criminal contractor, but vies with her behind for face time with Brest's ogling camera. Together they generate all the heat of a snowball.
As if to distract us, Christopher Walken momentarily steps in from Walkenland and pours out his trademark ticks and mannerism in a clipped, halting monologue, just to drop a plot point that should have been handled with more finesse and less wasted effort.
Al Pacino (apparently paying back Brest for his "Scent of a Woman" Oscar) tosses his past performances into a blender and pours out a growling Pacino gangster smoothie for his one scene.
Anyone on the Internet grapevine already has the news: "Gigli" is this summer's rotten egg. But buzz can be deceiving. Anyone expecting a cinematic train wreck on the scale of "Showgirls" will be disappointed.
There is no histrionic excess or crackpot camp, only hoary sentiment, the puppy-dog cuteness of the mentally handicapped, and the proposition that the "cure" for lesbianism is one good man brave enough to get in touch with his inner cow. Moo.
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