Gigli (2003)

What is wrong with you people? What the fuck happened to critical perspective in America? Did anyone out there who saw this evaluate it on its own merits and not as part of the Bennifer media circus? I mean, shit people. This movie's not that bad. It's overly long, yes (Martin Brest really, really needs a better editor), and the crime plot is haphazard, yes, and it's baffling why the retarded kid even needed to be in the film, yes, and it eventually flames out in the last half hour, yes (especially in regards to the tacked-on ending). But there's a lot of merit here too -- the film's examination of power and sexual politics is nothing if not ambitious, and the screenplay has a number of nice moments. (The dueling genitalia monologues, if they'd showed up in an off-Broadway play instead of this film, would probably already be classics.) Plus, Jennifer Lopez demonstrates yet again that, given the chance, she can act up a storm. So the film ultimately doesn't work. I'd still rather see a thousand ambitious failures like this than the other pieces of assembly-line crap Ben Affleck showed up in last year. (And c'mon.... Christopher Walken's cameo was hilariously weird.)

Grade: C+