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''Gigli'' ( ) is a 2003 American
romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...
crime film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...
written, co-produced, and directed by
Martin Brest Martin Brest (born August 8, 1951) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. After his feature debut, ''Going in Style'' (1979), he directed the action comedies ''Beverly Hills Cop'' (1984) and ''Midnight Run'' (1988), which were ...
, and starring
Ben Affleck Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globes. Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS educatio ...
,
Jennifer Lopez Jennifer Lynn Lopez (born July 24, 1969), also known by her nickname J.Lo, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer and businesswoman. Lopez is regarded as one of the most influential entertainers of her time, credited with breaking ...
, Justin Bartha,
Al Pacino Alfredo James Pacino ( ; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Known for his intense performances on stage and screen, Pacino is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. His career spans more than five decades, duri ...
,
Christopher Walken Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Christopher Walken on stage and screen, His work on stage and screen has earned him List of awards and nominations received by Christopher Walken, accolades includin ...
, and Lainie Kazan. Brest and producers disagreed about the film, leading to a protracted shutdown after filming and edits Brest did not approve. Affleck and Lopez became romantically involved during production, leading to major publicity. However, upon release ''Gigli'' was universally panned, and in subsequent years, it has been considered one of the worst films of all time. It is also one of the most expensive box-office bombs in history, grossing $7.2 million against a $75.6 million budget. It is the last film that Brest ever directed, and his only unprofitable film as a director.


Plot

Larry Gigli is a low-ranking Los Angeles mobster who is not nearly as tough as he pretends. Louis, a higher-ranking member of Gigli's organization, commands him to
kidnap Kidnapping or abduction is the unlawful abduction and confinement of a person against their will, and is a crime in many jurisdictions. Kidnapping may be accomplished by use of force or fear, or a victim may be enticed into confinement by frau ...
the mentally challenged younger brother of a powerful federal prosecutor, to use as a bargaining chip to save New York-based mob boss Starkman from prison. Gigli successfully convinces the young man, Brian, to go with him by promising to take him "to the Baywatch", apparently a reference to the
television show A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...
, which seems to be Brian's singular obsession. Louis does not trust Gigli to get the job done correctly, so he hires a woman who calls herself Ricki to take charge. Gigli is attracted to Ricki, but he resents both Louis's lack of faith in him and having to take orders from a woman. He is also frustrated by Brian's insistence on going to "the Baywatch" and that Ricki is a
lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...
. Events take a dark turn when Gigli and Ricki receive orders to cut off Brian's thumb, something neither wants to do. At a hospital, Gigli sneaks into the morgue and cuts off a corpse's thumb, which he sends to the prosecutor as Brian's. Gigli and Ricki return to his apartment, where he confesses his love, and they consummate their relationship. They are summoned to meet with the mob boss. Starkman reveals that he did not approve of the plan to kidnap a federal prosecutor's brother nor to cut off Brian's thumb. Nevertheless, he is angry because it did not match Brian's
fingerprint A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfa ...
. Therefore, it not only failed to increase pressure on the prosecutor, but also undermined their credibility. Starkman kills Louis in retaliation for the kidnapping and associated scrutiny by law enforcement. He is about to kill Ricki and Gigli, but she talks him out of it. She points out that only they know where Brian is and that only they can silence and prevent him from revealing Starkman's organization's involvement in the kidnapping. They leave Starkman's, decide to leave the mob, and discuss returning Brian to where they found him. On the way, they notice a ''Baywatch''-like music video that is being filmed on the beach. Brian begs to be let off there and, after some convincing, they consent. Gigli convinces Ricki to take his car to escape, but at the last minute, she returns to pick him up, and they leave town together.


Cast

*
Ben Affleck Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globes. Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS educatio ...
as Larry Gigli *
Jennifer Lopez Jennifer Lynn Lopez (born July 24, 1969), also known by her nickname J.Lo, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer and businesswoman. Lopez is regarded as one of the most influential entertainers of her time, credited with breaking ...
as Ricki/Rochelle * Justin Bartha as Brian * Lainie Kazan as Mrs. Gigli *
Al Pacino Alfredo James Pacino ( ; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Known for his intense performances on stage and screen, Pacino is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. His career spans more than five decades, duri ...
as Starkman * Lenny Venito as Louis * Missy Crider as Robin *
Christopher Walken Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Christopher Walken on stage and screen, His work on stage and screen has earned him List of awards and nominations received by Christopher Walken, accolades includin ...
as Stanley Jacobellis * Terrence Camilleri as Man in Dryer


Production

Halle Berry Halle Maria Berry ( ; born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. She began her career as a model and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant of 1986 and also placing six ...
was invited to be the female lead before dropping out due to scheduling conflicts with her film '' X2''. She was replaced with Jennifer Lopez, who signed in late 2001 for a reported $12 million.
Adam Brody Adam Jared Brody (born December 15, 1979) is an American actor. His breakout role was as Seth Cohen on the Fox television series '' The O.C.'' (2003–2007). For his performance as Noah in the Netflix romantic comedy series '' Nobody Wants T ...
auditioned for the role of Brian. ''Gigli'' began shooting in Los Angeles on December 10, 2001. The original ending featured Gigli being killed, but after negative response to a test screening, the ending was re-shot and edited. In a 2023 interview in '' Variety'', Martin Brest said:


Release

The film was released on August 1, 2003.


Reception


Box office

''Gigli'' grossed $3,753,518 during its opening weekend in 2,215 theaters, averaging $1,694 per theater and ranking #8 at the box office. The negative response led the studio to pull the advertisements for the film and replace them with another of their releases, ''
Bad Boys II ''Bad Boys II'' is a 2003 American action comedy film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and the sequel to the 1995 film '' Bad Boys'', in addition to the second film in the ''Bad Boys'' film series. Martin Lawrence, ...
''. At the time, the film set a record for the biggest second-weekend drop in box-office gross of any film in wide release since the statistic began being recorded. It dropped by 81.9% in its second weekend compared to its first, grossing $678,640. By its third weekend in release, only 73 US theaters were showing it, a 97% drop from its first weekend. The film ultimately earned $6,087,542 domestically, and $1,178,667 internationally, for a total of $7,266,209 on a $75.6 million production budget. After its third week, it was withdrawn, one of the shortest circulation times for a big-budget film. In the UK, the film was dropped by virtually every cinema after critics panned it. ''Gigli'' was stated to be a major part in
Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...
losing $42 million in the quarter of its release, although the studio had the successful ''Bad Boys II'' and '' S.W.A.T.'' during the same period. The worldwide gross of $7.7 million against a $75.6 million budget made ''Gigli'' one of the most expensive box-office flops of all time.


Critical response

On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, ''Gigli'' holds an approval rating of 6% based on 185 reviews with an average rating of 3.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Bizarre and clumsily plotted, ''Gigli'' is a mess. As for its stars, Affleck and Lopez lack chemistry." On
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, the film has a score of 18 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...
gave the film an average grade of "D−" on a scale of A+ to F. Joel Siegel of ''
Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'', often abbreviated as ''GMA'', is an American breakfast television, morning television program that is broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends wit ...
'' awarded the film a "D" rating and stated in his review, "To qualify as a historic failure, a film needs a measure of pretension and all ''Gigli'' ever wanted to be was a romantic comedy. What it is is a dreadful romantic comedy." ''
Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
''s
Owen Gleiberman Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for '' Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014. ...
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." On '' Ebert and Roeper'', critics
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
and
Richard Roeper Richard E. Roeper (born October 17, 1959) is an American writer. He is a former columnist and film critic for the '' Chicago Sun-Times'', where he wrote for 39 years dating back to 1986 until his departure in 2025. He co-hosted the television s ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...
'' both gave the film a thumbs down, although Ebert showed some sympathy toward the film, stating that 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 included ''Gigli'' on his list of the 100 worst films of the decade, at #7. Ebert and
James Berardinelli James Berardinelli (born September 25, 1967) is an American film critic. His reviews are mainly published on his blog ''ReelViews.'' Approved as a critic by the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, he has published two collections of reviews of movies on ...
were two of the few major critics to not write it off completely. Ebert (in his print review for ''The Chicago Sun-Times'') gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, and made the balanced observation that Brest avoided obvious plot developments and he said Walken, Pacino and Kazan made the best of their small roles. While the conclusion of ''Gigli'' was disappointing Ebert wrote "maybe the movie is worth seeing for some scenes that are really very good". He also believed Affleck and Lopez "have chemistry" but were not believable as organized crime operatives. Berardinelli of the ''Reel Views'' blog gave it 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." One of the few positive reviews came from Amy Dawes of '' Variety'', who wrote that the story was ludicrous and also predicted a box-office failure. But she also found it a fun film with several good performances. In recent years, ''Gigli'' has increasingly been re-evaluated by critics who often had moderately more positive reviews. For example, Jason Bailey, in a piece for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', notes that "in the 21st century, the mixed review has become an endangered species—most readers look for the Rotten Tomatoes rating and pull-quote, and little beyond that. Everything is the absolute holy-shit best or the godawful worst of all time, and there's nothing in between. ''Gigli'' is in between."


Accolades


Legacy

The film's title was named by the Global Language Monitor as one of the top words from
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...
to have an impact on the
English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
in 2003. In particular, late-night talk-show hosts lampooned the film in their monologues:
Conan O'Brien Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an American television host, comedian, writer, actor, and producer. He is best known for having hosted Late-night talk show, late-night talk shows, beginning with ''Late Night with Conan O'B ...
said, "The Mets are doing so badly that they will be renamed 'The New York Gigli'". In his song "Virus Alert" from his 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood,
"Weird Al" Yankovic Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American comedy musician, writer, and actor. He is best known for writing and performing Comedy music, comedy songs that often Parody music, parody specific songs by contempo ...
references the film, hyperbolically claiming that a computer virus will "make your TV record Gigli."
Yahoo! Movies Yahoo! Movies (formerly Upcoming Movies), provided by the Yahoo! network, was home to a large collection of information on movies, past and new releases, trailers and clips, box office information, and showtimes and movie theater information. Ya ...
ranks ''Gigli'' at number one on their ''Bottom Rated Movies of All Time'', with a critics' rating of D−. In May 2015, ''
The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' ranked ''Gigli'' #25 on its list of "50 Worst Movie Titles of All Time". In a 2013 episode of ''
Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
'', Fred Armisen plays Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (born Mahmoud Sabbaghian on 28 October 1956) is an Iranian Iranian principlists, principlist and Iranian nationalism, nationalist politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He is currently a mem ...
performing as Affleck in a movie criticizing the creation of ''
Argo In Greek mythology, the ''Argo'' ( ; ) was the ship of Jason and the Argonauts. The ship was built with divine aid, and some ancient sources describe her as the first ship to sail the seas. The ''Argo'' carried the Argonauts on their quest fo ...
'' while Affleck (who directed, produced and starred in ''Argo'') is cast as a member of the filming crew. When his character was asked why he would appear in this film, Affleck responded, "I've long been looking to appear in a movie worse than ''Gigli''." Affleck said that the negative reception of ''Gigli'' led to his directing career.


See also

*
List of films considered the worst The films listed below have been cited by a variety of notable critics in varying media sources as being among the worst films ever made. Examples of such sources include Metacritic, Roger Ebert's list of most-hated films, '' The Golden Turk ...
* List of biggest box-office bombs


References


External links

* * * * {{Authority control 2003 films 2003 romantic comedy films 2000s American films 2003 crime comedy films 2000s English-language films American crime comedy films American romantic comedy films Lesbian-related films Mafia comedy films Romantic crime films Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in Los Angeles Films directed by Martin Brest Films produced by Casey Silver Films scored by John Powell Columbia Pictures films Revolution Studios films Golden Raspberry Award–winning films English-language crime comedy films English-language romantic comedy films