Enough (2002)

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Bill Campbell, Juliette Lewis
Director: Michael Apted

Rating: PG-13

Studio: Columbia

Review Posted: 5.12.02

Spoilers: Minor

Rating: 0.5/4 (D-)

By Craig Younkin.

The title of the new Jennifer Lopez movie "Enough" says it all. 15 minutes into this atrocious thriller from director Michel Apted, I had had enough of every bit of this "Sleeping with the Enemy" ripp-off. Enough, enough, enough. Those words kept flashing in my head throughout this dull, sentimental, underdeveloped, cheesy, emotionless, flat, and dumb film that has some of the most abominable acting in recent memory.

Jennifer Lopez stars in the lead role as Slim, a woman whose only financial support comes from waitressing at the local diner. One day while being hit on by a creep, Mitch (Billy Campbell) comes to her aid, and in no time, both of them are walking down the aisle together as man and wife. This happens about 5 minutes into the film, and from this point the movie goes into a short musical montage of how they become the perfect family (although they feel like cartoons out of fantasyland).

Then trouble strikes. Slim finds out that Mitch is having an affair, and instead of denying it, Mitch comes right out and admits it, knowing the Slim is too weak to do anything about it. He even hits her so that the movie can fit all the clichés of a bastard in the one scene. Slim tries to go to the police, but realizes that they can't guarantee the safety of her and her daughter (Tessa Allen) and so she knows she must do something in order to survive.  

So she takes off with her daughter, running from a hotel to an ex-boyfriends house  to San Francisco and so on, but in each place she finds that Mitch is only one step behind her. For some reason Mitch can't live without her (that reason being that the movie has to continue) and so for no reason whatsoever, sends everyone he knows, from a couple of FBI agents to a private investigator, to track her down, even as he continues to sleep with other woman. Is this guy a great villain or what?

Once Slim realizes that she can't run anymore (and it takes her a good hour and a half to do so) she finally begins to train for a big showdown between herself and Mitch to finally get him out of her life for good.

There have been numerous comparisons made between this and the movie "Double Jeopardy", but let me be the first to say that even that film has more intelligence than this. At least there the thrills and the lead performance served as a backbone for the ridiculous plot, here both are like rat poison. The thrills center around characters somehow breaking into homes undetected and lurking around ceilings and halls and then suddenly popping out of no where. I thought this kind of cheap thrill entertainment went out with teen horror movies.

Apparently the teen horror movie heroine is still as dumb as ever, as the Jennifer Lopez character never makes a rational decision throughout the entire film. Her acting is also dreadful. Lopez cries and whines in almost every dramatic scene, basically begging for sympathy to the point where it becomes irritating. And in the finale, where she is finally called upon to show the movie's theme of girl power, her toughness looks absolutely ridiculous. She's so bad that I started thinking about who would be better suited to play this role midway through it. Athletic actresses with talent like Jodie Foster or Sigourney Weaver came to mind.

Billy Campbell is barely even a character here and is also completely miscast. He's a bunch of clichés thrown together, but even more importantly is that he never breaks out of his nice guy image. He just seems to calmly walk through the role, never striking you as any one to really fear or hate. The scenes between him and Lopez, which should be what powers the future events of the film, never even comes close to reaching the emotional intensity necessary to really cheer the movie on.

The dialogue given to many of the characters is awful as well. The best stuff screenwriter Nicholas Kazan can come up with comes from Tessa Allen, who has been programmed to say cute things on cue.  Enough tries to have it both ways, it wants to have the seriousness of a thriller while still trying to contain the lightness and heartwarming manipulations of a chick flick. The result is one of the worst and most poorly acted films in recent memory. Give "Enough" some time, and you'll begin to feel that the only person being really abused here is yourself.

TOP