| Gigli | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Martin Brest |
| Produced by | Martin Brest Casey Silver |
| Written by | Martin Brest |
| Starring | Ben Affleck Jennifer Lopez Justin Bartha Lainie Kazan Christopher Walken Lenny Venito Missy Crider Al Pacino |
| Music by | John Powell |
| Cinematography | Robert Elswit |
| Editing by | Julie Monroe Billy Weber |
| Studio | Revolution Studios |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 1, 2003 |
| Running time | 121 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75.6 million[1] |
| Box office | $7,266,209[2] |
Gigli ( /ˈdʒiːlji/) is a 2003 romantic comedy film written and directed by Martin Brest and starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Lainie Kazan.
After a protracted battle between studio and director, a radically revised version of the original film was released. There was significant media attention and popular interest prior to its release, primarily because Affleck and Lopez, the film's stars, were romantically involved at the time. However, critical reception was extremely poor, and in the years since its release Gigli has frequently been cited as among the worst movies ever made.
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Larry Gigli (Ben Affleck) is a low-ranking mobster in Los Angeles who is not nearly as tough as he likes to act. He is commanded to kidnap the mentally challenged younger brother of a powerful federal prosecutor to save New York-based mob boss Starkman (Al Pacino) from prison.
Gigli successfully convinces the young man, Brian (Justin Bartha), to go off with him by promising to take him "to the Baywatch," which seems to be Brian's singular obsession. The man who ordered the kidnapping, Louis (Lenny Venito), does not trust Gigli to get the job done right, so he hires a woman calling herself Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) to take charge.
Gigli is attracted to Ricki, but he resents the fact that Louis does not have faith in him and that he has to take orders from a woman. He is also frustrated by Brian's insistence on going to "the Baywatch" and by Ricki's lesbianism. The events take a darker turn when Larry and Ricki receive orders to cut off Brian's thumb, something neither wants to do.
Ricki's girlfriend, Robin (Missy Crider), shows up at Gigli's apartment, accusing her of cheating. She slits her wrists and has to be rushed to the hospital. While at the hospital, Gigli goes to the morgue and cuts off a corpse's thumb, which he sends to his boss as Brian's thumb. Gigli and Ricki go back to his apartment where Gigli confesses his love, and the two sleep together.
They are summoned to meet with the mob's boss. Starkman reveals that he didn't approve of the plan to kidnap a federal prosecutor's brother and scolds them because the thumb they sent won't match Brian's fingerprint; he then kills Louis. Starkman is about to kill Ricki and Gigli as well, but Ricki talks him out of it.
They decide to take Brian back to where they found him. On the way, they discover Baywatch (or a similarly themed show or film) shooting an episode on the beach. They leave a happy Brian there, and at the last minute, Ricki decides to leave town with Gigli.
Gigli was considered a bomb, often called the worst movie of 2003, grossing less than $4 million in its opening weekend after costing $75 million to produce. Critical reception was extremely negative. Gigli scored 7% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 157 reviews, with the overall consensus being: "Bizarre and clumsily plotted, Gigli is a mess. As for its stars, Affleck and Lopez lack chemistry."[3] It scored an 18% on Metacritic based on 37 reviews, meaning "extreme dislike".[4]
Gigli also scored only a 7% on Rotten Tomatoes' "Cream of the Crop" section, a three among notable critics at Rotten Tomatoes and a 2.3 among Metacritic's users. Gigli also set a record for the biggest second-weekend drop in box office gross of any film in wide release since that statistic was kept; it dropped by almost 82 percent in its second weekend compared to its first.[5] By its third weekend in release, only 73 U.S. theaters were showing it, down from 2,215 during its first weekend, a drop of 97 percent.
On Ebert and Roeper, critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper both gave the film thumbs down, although Ebert showed some sympathy towards the film, stating it had "clever dialogue", but was "... too disorganized for me to recommend it." Roeper called the film "a disaster" and "one of the worst movies I've ever seen". He then included Gigli on his 100 worst movies of the decade at #7.
Its title was named by the Global Language Monitor as one of the top words from Hollywood having an impact on the English language in 2003.[6] Late night talk show hosts in particular lampooned the film in their monologues; Conan O'Brien said "The Mets are doing so badly that they will be renamed 'The New York Gigli.'" The film was withdrawn from U.S. theatres after only three weeks (one of the shortest circulation times for a big-budget movie), earning a total of only $6 million domestically and $1 million abroad. In the UK, the film was dropped by virtually every cinema after critics panned it.
The film received six Razzies in the 2003 Golden Raspberry Awards – Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Couple. For a film to win the "Academy Awards grand slam", it must win the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Writing, Screenplay. Conversely, winning those awards' Razzie counterparts makes Gigli the only film ever to perform the "Razzie grand slam". A year later, the film won a seventh Razzie for "Worst Comedy of Our First 25 Years."
Currently, Yahoo! Movies rates Gigli number one on their Bottom Rated Movies of All Time,[7] with a critics rating of D−.[8] The Onion, a satirical newspaper, ran an article about the film, titled "Gigli focus groups demand new ending in which Affleck and Lopez die."[9] Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli, while panning the film, were two of the very few critics to not write it off completely.[10] Ebert ranked the film with two and a half stars, saying, "They didn't quite get to where they wanted to be, but the film is worth seeing for some very good scenes." Berardinelli ranked the film with two stars, saying, "This isn't a good film, but, when set alongside the likes of Dumb and Dumberer and Legally Blonde 2, Jen & Ben offer less pain."
Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman Gave the film a "C+" Stating "A watchable bad movie, but it's far from your typical cookie-cutter blockbuster. There are no shoot-outs or car chases, and there isn't much romantic suspense, either."
A rare positive review came from Amy Dawes of Variety. She wrote that the story was ludicrous and that the film would tank, but that on balance she found it a fun film with several good performances.[11] Her review was the only positive one out of 37 reviews from notable critics according to Rotten Tomatoes. Although hers was the only positive one on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert's was the highest rated on Metacritic.
Perhaps the only element of the film that received any noticeable positive attention was Justin Bartha's performance as the mentally handicapped younger brother. Even some of the critics who were completely panning the film gave a sliver of positivity when mentioning Bartha's performance, although others (particularly Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper) found the character manipulative and derivative of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.[12] Nonetheless, his performance did nothing to overshadow the film's nearly unanimous bad reviews.
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