Gigli

Director: Martin Brest
Year Released: 2003
Rating: 0.5

I wanted to see the best in this - since it was so horrendously thrashed by critics hungry for blood - but ultimately the sourness of the movie and barely-there plot make it a painful experience. The discussion of gender roles and sexual preference - Jennifer Lopez's character is a strong, confident lesbian who Ben Affleck, doing a nice Alec Baldwin impersonation, tries to 'bring over from the dark side' - are laughable, the inclusion of Lopez's suicidal girlfriend (who cuts her wrists, goes to the hospital and is dropped from the picture) is almost a throwaway part and the fact that the guy Lopez and Affleck have to kidnap a mentally handicapped Baywatch obsessive - who is played for laughs (he is given a little dignity at the end; always go with the ladies of the UK, I say) - is uncomfortably exploitative.