- Gigli
:"Not to be confused with Gigi" Infobox Film | name =Gigli
caption = Movie poster for "Gigli"
director =Martin Brest
producer =Martin Brest Casey Silver
writer =Martin Brest
starring =Ben Affleck Jennifer Lopez Al Pacino Christopher Walken Lainie Kazan
music =John Powell
cinematography =Robert Elswit
editing =Julie Monroe Billy Weber
distributor =Columbia Pictures Revolution Studios
released =August 1 , 2003
runtime = 121 min
language = English
budget = $54,000,000 (estimated)
gross = $6,068,735 (USA)
imdb_id = 0299930 Infobox movie certificates
United_States = R
United_Kingdom = 15 "Gigli" (pronEng|ˈdʒiːli or IPA|/ˈʒiːʎi/) is a film released in 2003 which was written and directed byMartin Brest , starringBen Affleck andJennifer Lopez ,Al Pacino ,Christopher Walken , andLainie Kazan . The critical reception of the film was very poor and the film became infamous as one of the worst movies ever made.Plot
Larry Gigli (Affleck) is a low ranking
mobster who is commanded to kidnap the disabled, "Baywatch "-obsessed younger brother (Justin Bartha ) of a powerful federalprosecutor , to save hismobster boss fromprison . Gigli successfully convinces the man, Brian, to go off with him by promising to take him "to the Baywatch". However, Gigli's boss does not trust him; he hires a woman calling herself Ricki (Jennifer Lopez ) to take over the job. Although Gigli is attracted to Ricki, he resents the fact that Louis (Lenny Venito ), his boss, does not have faith in him and that he has to take orders from Ricki. He is also frustrated by Brian's insistence on going to "Baywatch" and Ricki'slesbianism . The events of the movie take on a darker turn when Larry and Ricki receive orders from Ray to cut off Brian's thumb, something neither of them wants to do.When Ricki's girlfriend shows up at Gigli's apartment, accusing her of cheating, she slits her wrist 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 eventually go back to his apartment and Gigli confesses his love for Ricki, who has sex with him. Afterwards, they are called to meet with their mob boss. The boss Starkman (
Al Pacino ) reveals that he didn't approve of the plan to kidnap a federal prosecutor's brother, knows that the thumb they sent doesn't match Brian's fingerprint, and shoots Gigli's boss dead. Starkman is about to kill Ricki and Gigli as well, but Ricki points out that only the three of them know what happened, so Starkman allows them to leave and take the brother back to where they found him. On the way, they discover "Baywatch" shooting an episode on the beach and leave Brian there to be picked up.Reaction
The movie was considered a bomb, often called the worst movie of 2003, grossing less than $4 million in its opening weekend after costing $54 million to make. It earned nearly universally negative reviews and scores only a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 157 reviews, with the consensus being: "bizarre and clumsily plotted, Gigli is a mess. As for its stars, Affleck and Lopez lack chemistry." [cite web | url = http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gigli/ | title = Gigli | publisher = Rotten Tomatoes | accessdate = 2008-01-19] It scored an 18% on metacritic based on 37 reviews meaning "extreme dislike or disgust". [http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/gigli?q=gigli] It also scores only an 8% on the Rotten Tomatoes Cream of the Crop, a 3% among notable critics at Rotten Tomatoes and a 2.2 among metacritics 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; its gross dropped by almost 82% in its second weekend compared to its first. [ [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/drops.htm Biggest Second Weekend Drops at the Box Office ] ] . By its third weekend on release, only 73 U.S. theaters were showing it, down from 2,215 during its first weekend, a drop of 97%. [cite web | url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299930/trivia | title=Trivia for "Gigli" | publisher=
Internet Movie Database | accessdate=2007-10-22 ]It was also named by the Global Language Monitor as one of the top words from Hollywood impacting the English Language for 2003. [ [http://www.languagemonitor.com/wst_page15.html HollyWORDS ] ] Late night talk show hosts in particular blasted the film in their monologues, for example
Conan O'Brien said "The Mets are doing so badly that they will be re-named 'The New York "Gigli".'" It was eventually withdrawn from U.S. theatres after only 3 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 terms of budget percentage, it is one of the biggestbox-office bomb s ever. In the UK, the movie was dropped by virtually every cinema after critics universally 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 forBest Picture ,Best Director ,Best Actor , Best Actress, andBest Writing, Screenplay . Conversely, winning those awards'Razzie counterparts makes Gigli the only film to ever 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", [ [http://movies.yahoo.com/mvc/top10 Top Movies - Yahoo! Movies ] ] with a critics rating of D−. [ [http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808404170/info Gigli (2003) - Movie Info - Yahoo! Movies ] ] "The Onion ", a satirical newspaper, ran an article about the film, titled "Gigli" focus groups demand new ending in which Affleck and Lopez die." [cite news | url = http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29151 | title = Gigli Focus Groups Demand New Ending In Which Both Affleck And Lopez Die | date = 2003-07-30 | publisher = The Onion]Roger Ebert andJames Berardinelli , while panning the film, were two of the very few critics to not write it off completely. [cite news | url = http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030801/REVIEWS/308010303/1023 | first = Roger | last = Ebert | publisher = Chicago Sun-Times | date = 2003-08-01 | title = Movie Reviews: Gigli] 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." A rare positive, as opposed to less negative, review came from Amy Dawes of "Variety". She conceded the story was ludicrous and that the film would tank, but stated that on balance she found it a fun film with several good performances. [cite news | title = Gigli Review | url = http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117921453.html | publisher = Variety | first = Amy | last = Dawes | date = 2003-08-02] Her review was the only positive one out of 37 reviews from notable critics according to Rotten Tomatoes. Another positive review came from Dustin Putman, who gave the film a 3 out of 4 stars, and called it the most underrated film of 2003. Perhaps the only element of the film that received any noticeable positive attention was Justin Bartha's performance as the mentally handicapped man. Even some of the critics who were completely panning the film gave a sliver of positivity when mentioning Bartha's performance. [http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/07/31/sprj.cas03.review.gigli/index.html?iref=newssearch] Nonetheless, his performance did nothing to overshadow the film's nearly unanimous bad reviews. Gigli is often considered, along with Battlefield Earth andI Know Who Killed Me , to be the worst picture of the decade.Its infamy has made it into the music world also, as in
Weird Al 's "Virus Alert " the lyrics mention that thecomputer virus featured in the story will "make your TV record Gigli". Also, in the flash animated video, children are shown crying as they have just seen the movie on TV.Impact on Lopez
Lopez's career has declined since the release of "Gigli". Her 2005 album "
Rebirth " was poorly received despite peaking at No. 2 on theBillboard 200 . Her only single that reached the top 20 was "Get Right " which peaked at No. 12 on theBillboard Hot 100 . The other single, "Hold You Down " failed to chart the top 40. It failed to match her previous sales in the United States and worldwide, selling 2 million copies. Her 2007 album "Brave " was not received well, being noted as a commercial failure. It peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 with sales of 53,000 copies in its first week and sold around 550,000 copies worldwide, making it Lopez's lowest selling album of her career. It is also her first album not to chart the top 10. The first single from the albumDo It Well only peaked at No. 31 in the U.S. but achieved moderate success outside the U.S. The second singleHold It Don't Drop It was released in Europe, but not in the United States. It failed to become a hit in most countries in Europe, but did however, peak at No. 1 on theHot Dance Club Play in the U.S. Plans for a third single were scrapped due to the low sales of the album.References
External links
* [http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/gigli/ Sony Pictures: "Gigli"]
*imdb title|id=0299930|title=Gigli
*rotten-tomatoes|id=gigli|title=Gigli
*metacritic film|id=gigli|title=Gigli
*mojo title|id=gigli|title=Gigli
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