I did not want to rent Gigli.
I feigned movie fines at every Blockbuster in the tri-county area to get out of renting it. So my fearless friend rented it for me, and that’s when the rumors started to circulate. Upon verification that someone had, in fact, rented this film, six masochistic people attended a bizarre event that sprung up from the deep shame that is “Gigli.” That’s right. We had ourselves a good, old-fashioned film screening.
I’ll say “film” for that extra-special touch of irony.
That fearless friend? He qualified his rental of “Gigli” by casually telling the Blockbuster employee that he was renting it for a school project. He’s fearless, but not dumb; no one wants to be associated with this film (though I admit I had a sick curiosity). The scariest part about this whole experience is that Blockbuster Guy said, “You know, it really was not that bad.”
OK, then. Maybe “Gigli” got a bad rap. Maybe the press and the critics and the Screen Actors Guild and the 153 or so people that actually paid to see it and the studio and everyone on earth just didn’t get it and it was a fine cinematic achievement — just horrifically misunderstood. Blockbuster Guy was our beacon of hope, our ray of sunshine in the “Gigli” shadow. Could he be right?
No. Definitely not. Blockbuster Guy, you sweet little man: You are so far beyond wrong, it’s hilarious.
Blockbuster Guy apparently didn’t need any sort of film-critiquing skill to work at the rental monolith because the film was bad. Embarrassingly bad. “Gigli” rhymes with “really” (as Ben Affleck, who plays Larry Gigli, said twice in the first mind-melting 10 minutes of the film), and it was really, really bad.
Did I mention it was bad?
We were a twisted crowd that attended the screening. We knew it was probably going to elicit a few laughs and possibly a few jaw drops of disbelief, but it wasn’t until someone read the movie case that we truly got the inkling that we were going to battle. Blockbuster had taken the liberty of suggesting other films we might take a liking to.
It read, “Enjoy other such films as ‘Darkness Falls’ and ‘Wrong Turn.’”
It meant, “Since you are enjoying this shitty film, please rent these other shitty titles.”
And then we pressed play.
I can honestly say I have no idea what “Gigli” is about. I do know that Gigli is played by Affleck (which was a surprise, since I thought Gigli was the girl’s name) and that Jennifer Lopez’s character is named Michelle. Or Rochelle. Or was it Ricki at some point? (Finding out her name is supposed to be the last punchline in the film, but by that time, all hope was lost; I had lost my mind about the same time I was watching fish in an aquarium eat Gigli’s boss’ brain. There’s that deadpan irony again! I lose my brain as I watch one get eaten. Brilliant.)
Throw in some gangsters, a mentally challenged teenager kidnapped by Gigli, Ricki/Rochelle/Michelle/or something like that, her lesbian lover and, for some inexplicable reason, Al Pacino (complete with a ponytail) and Christopher Walken — whose characters made no sense but they eat up 20 minutes of the film so it was OK — and you’ve got “Gigli.” It’s a dead-air, dead-screen, dead-acting, dead-writing, zero-chemistry, horrid piece of film.
There was that great yoga scene, though, where Lopez likens a vagina to a woman’s mouth as she does the downward dog and other various yoga poses clearly choreographed to accentuate her gigantic asset. At first, it was the only redeeming scene of the film; we may be masochists but hey, we’ll watch Jennifer Lopez do yoga. But then she started to talk.
The dialogue was less than desirable in “Gigli.” Who reads “It’s turkey time — gobble, gobble,” in a script, knowing full well that the lines are written specifically about oral sex, and thinks “I must be in this film.”
Well, Lopez did. “Gigli” was also a low-point for gay representation since it seems to tell audiences that even a lesbian (Yeah, Ricki is a lesbian too) who pontificates about the beauty of a supple woman’s body can’t resist Affleck’s mole-covered one.
Affleck, his moles and his air-brushed tattoos got some of the worst lines in cinematic history (or best, depending if you are a glass-half-full sort of person). I had to watch him painfully utter, with humiliation in his eye, words like: “Suck my dick dot com” (when he smashes a laptop over his knee), “dykasaurus rex,” “stone-cold dyke,” and other such gems.
Writer/director Martin Brest, what were you thinking? Shame on you. Shame on you (but thank you, it broke up the monotonous mire) for reeling Christopher Walken and Al Pacino into your swamp.
This film was Gigli bad.
