Before watching the movie:
I have to confess that I thought this was a completely different kind of movie. I thought it was a carefree European romcom somehow that everyone hated for some reason. I thought it was in Paris, I thought Gigli was the girl’s name, and I didn’t really know anything else. Both of those things were wrong. In preparing to watch I have discovered that it’s more of a seamy crime comedy I guess? I wonder if I was mixing it up with another romantic comedy. I highly doubt it was Surviving Christmas. Probably Gigi.
Picking out posters, I do think that the marketing was partly to blame, at least what marketing I saw with the media I had access to in 2003 for an R-rated movie.
After watching the movie:
Larry Gigli is a mob enforcer, not too bright, but always belittled and harangued by his boss Louis, the L.A. boss of the organization. As Louis’s superior from the New York chapter of the organization is in legal trouble in New York, Louis orders Larry to go kidnap the mentally challenged brother of the one who is putting pressure on the big boss to use as leverage out of the L.A. adult care home he lives in. Brian, the kidnapping target, asks Larry if they can go to “the Baywatch”, and Larry tells him that’s where they’re going, then once they’re in the car, fakes getting a call that The Baywatch is closed today, and they’ll have to wait at his apartment. Within minutes of arriving and getting Brian settled, a gorgeous woman claiming to be new in the building knocks on the door, says her name is Ricki, and can she use the phone to get an update on when her service will be connected. Once inside, Ricki reveals that she was also hired by Louis to co-manage the job because Louis doesn’t believe Larry is capable of successfully executing an operation of this importance. Ricki takes charge of the situation, and Larry deeply resents being told what to do by a woman, especially a lesbian and therefore sexually unavailable one. Just as they’re coming to terms with the idea of having to work together, a cop Larry is familiar with comes knocking on the door asking if he might have “any idea” who might have kidnapped a federal prosecutor’s brother, and whether he thinks it has anything to do with influencing that prosecutor’s case against big fish New York crime boss Starkman. While Larry is having a really rough week, irritated on one side by Brian’s idiosyncrasies and on the other by his frustrations with his relationship with Ricki, they get a call from Louis ordering them to mail Brian’s thumb to the prosecutor, something neither of them feel comfortable with.
I’m pretty sure this is not the movie anyone was expecting. It’s an R rated organized crime romantic comedy and it’s not that bloody or sexy. If the strong language didn’t flow so freely this could probably have gotten a PG-13. But moreover, I don’t think it’s a movie anyone was ready for in 2003. Larry’s arc is largely about dismantling the toxic masculinity he’s internalized about how he needs to act and treat others and himself, and it’s not buried under as much gay panic as one would think for its time. Larry is clearly positioned as someone who needs to evolve. I think if it had been made ten or fifteen years later, it could’ve had a better reception.
Brian is a Hollywood style autistic character, so he’s not that realistic, but he is respected fairly well by the narrative. It’s tough to see him get pushed around, but the people who do that are either clear bad guys or Larry, who’s in the process of learning not to be so aggressive and angry. I would’ve liked to see Ricki be more complex than a perfect foil. She’s an interesting character but we barely get to really know her beyond her hypercompetency and psychological insights. I suppose we can’t because this is very much Larry’s POV though the movie and the whole point of Larry’s relationship with her is that he can’t get a good read on her.
This movie is underbaked. I’m not sure I agree with Affleck that it lost all its meaning when the studio insisted on a happier ending after test audiences didn’t like where it originally ended up, but whatever it needs, it didn’t quite make it there, and failed to make up for it in star power. In fact, it might work better with less recognizable and Hollywood perfect faces out front. But I’m really not so sure that the slick romantic comedy about a cool hitman winning Jennifer Lopez that the marketing seems to have been selling was at all preferable to the imperfect screwball comedy about a screwup unlearning harmful patterns of behavior and thought by coming to terms with letting a lesbian take charge and understanding a young man well enough to take him to the Baywatch.
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