Gigli

It's turkey time guys.

Director: Martin Brest
Written by: Martin Brest

"The violent story of how a criminal lesbian, a tough guy hitman with a heart of gold, and a mentally challenged man come to be best friends through a hostage" That's the description of the romantic comedy that I just saw. What the fuck kind of description is that? At least it was partly accurate, there is a lesbian, a man with a heart of gold and a mentally challenged man in this picture and it is quite violent in parts.

First off,  I'm gonna start with the positive stuff and there's not really much of it, I'm looking back through my notes and all I'm seeing that's positive is Ben Affleck's face. That's essentially it. Ben Affleck's face is beautiful, that's the positives over.

Negatively speaking, there are 3 main problems, and that's the 3 main characters. Jennifer Lopez plays Ricky, a lesbian criminal hired to help Ben Affleck's character Larry Gigli look after his hostage Brian, played by Justin  Barfa. Let me say that again, Jennifer plays a lesbian in this romantic comedy with two male co-stars. Y'all already know something stupid is gonna go down here right? She basically accidentally seduces Affleck's character and somehow entices him into bed with the line quote: "It's turkey time...gobble gobble." And in turn, she is then seduced by Affleck and rides off into the sunset with him. Her character is just bland and more than likely very sexually confused. Why would a lesbian want to sleep with a straight man? Any lesbians out there that wanna answer this just let me know ok? I'm genuinely interested.

Moving onto the "mentally challenged" Justin Barfa. I say "mentally challenged" in quotes because we're never given any clear indication of what his characters mental handicap is, I mean we get insights into some Tourette's syndrome at the beginning but that's pretty much it. His character never says anything about it which I guess would make sense if it was never brought up but the thing is, his character is asked the question "what is up with you?" a fair amount of times, considering this character doesn't know these people you'd think he'd tell them. Or that Ricky and Gigli would have done their job better and found out more about this kid. Another thing, this character just feels insulting to me. He's written as a complete idiot. There's a scene where just after he's kidnapped Affleck gets out his walkie-talky which is actually a flashlight and somehow this kid is just buying it. He's also just accepting that he's being kidnapped, like yeah he's mentally challenged but I think he'd know that he's being kidnapped, he's mentally challenged not an idiot, to quote Klaus from the Netflix series A Series Of Unfortunate Events "the two aren't mutually exclusive." (Go check out that series when you're done reading this, it's soooooo good. If you've already seen it go watch it again.) I guess it's not that bad but...I don't know the whole performance just made me feel a little uncomfortable. It was no Leonardo Dicaprio in Gilbert Grape but it wasn't like that Donald Trump impersonation either. This guy obviously did his research and did his best to do the part justice but I just wasn't into it.

Finally, we got Affleck as Larry Gigli. Fuck this guy (both literally and figuratively). This guy does his business out in the open, like stuffing a guy in a washing machine at a laundromat and discussing a kidnapping in the street. Both in broad daylight and both very stupid moves if you ask me, don't do your illegal business in open spaces where you're likely to get caught. He uses a flashlight as a walkie-talky and then a moment or two later he uses his phone in front of the person he was trying to pass off a flashlight as a walkie-talky. Stupid move again. He apparently fucks up all his jobs, prompting his boss to say to him, quote: "I don't like hiring you, then hiring someone else to do your fuckin' job. Do your fuckin' job." Like, if he's so much of a fuck up why hire him at all? Hire the someone else instead of him and you won't lose as much money. Idiot. He is essentially seduced by a lesbian, I'm not saying that's a bad thing but she wasn't even trying and she managed it. Before he knew she was a lesbian though, he was flexing his muscles in bed, that's a hilariously awkward thing to do if you're trying to sleep with someone. He also screams and pushes Brain (Justin Barfa) around when he first gets him back to his apartment, that's just a dick thing to do, right? Overall, I just didn't like this character, he was just a gorgeous dick.

Aside from the characters, the film's description is a lie..mostly, like I said there is a (possible) lesbian, a guy with a heart of gold and a mentally challenged man and it is violent in places. What's a lie is that they all become best friends. They don't, I'm pretty sure Affleck and Lopez get together and just leave Barfa on his own. Not something a best friend would do...I think, I mean me and my best friend kinda bully each other but it's just all fun. I don't think we'd leave each other in unfamiliar places alone with a group of strangers, though...maybe. They don't cut his thumb off which is good though I mean no best friend would do that..no decent human being would do that either but the point is, that no best friend would ever do it.

The violence is fairly short lived but it's almost as if the writers came up with the description before the film and just forgot that violence was even meant to be in it so just came up with a couple of scenes to throw in to not seem as if they lied. At least one of those scenes tied into the plot...kinda...I guess. The first scene doesn't tie in, it's just Lopez's ex bursting in and cutting her wrists in a suicide attempt, blood practically pours out and the scene goes nowhere. The second is just an excuse to fit in an Al Pacino monologue. Pacino kills a guy then allows Lopez and Affleck to end the hostage situation? I think? Honestly, I'm not 100% sure on what happened in that scene, it felt like a solid 10 minutes of Pacino just going on with himself and I watched it back about 3 times and none of it sunk in. Also, the word fuck is just disgustingly abused. Looking at the trivia part of IMDB, the word fuck is used 124 times which almost makes me want to go back and watch the film again to see whether that number includes the word fucking too or not. That's a pretty interesting thing if it does though 'cause it seems as though every other word in this fucking thing is fuck. The final "violent" thing I'm gonna mention is how long this thing feels. It's 2 hours 1 minute long and I promise you, you feel every single second just draining your existence. This film wants to waste your time and rather let you think it's taken 2 hours 1minute of it, it lets you think it's taken 6 hours and 3 minutes. Barely anything happens to keep you interested in this thing. It's just really boring.

I almost forgot to mention, the other actor that was kinda shoehorned in at the last minute for a scene that goes nowhere was one of my absolute favourite actors, Christopher Walken. God bless this guy. He plays a policeman who knows of the kidnapping and goes to Affleck's place to talk to him about it. I'm not sure whether he's telling him he knows it's Affleck and leaving him to it or just warning him that other cops might be wanting to come over at some point but what I do know is, is that this guy wanted some ice cream. Easily the best scene in the whole film.

Anyway, that's what I think, easily one of the most boring and pointless things I've ever sat through, and I managed to get through The Revenant without falling asleep or going on my phone. I wouldn't advise seeing this film, it just isn't worth it.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this particular film please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.