obsession boyfriend i'm psyched girl crush i'm dreading enemy

(need an explanation?)

advertisements





when in Stratford-upon-Avon, U.K., I stay at
Adelphi Guest House




reviews Thu May 23 02, 5:45PM

Enough (review)

Lawlessness and Disorder

J Lo: Waitress. Housewife. Battered Woman. Ninja.

Reality has little to do with Enough. Enough is about watching Jennifer Lopez kick the living shit out of Billy Campbell. Why? Because that's what gets preview audiences on their feet, cheering. Why it's acceptable to cheer while a woman beats the holy crap out of a man, but not the other way around, is one question the thinking moviegoer might ask, and yet it's far from the only outstanding question. One might also wonder whether this isn't the movie most calculated to enrage an audience ever made, and that's saying something in a year that has also produced John Q.

(more below the ad... scroll down...)

Billy Campbell was once the Rocketeer. It makes me very sad that he is now the poster boy for Right Rotten Bastards. Not that you can take him seriously. His absurdly fairy-tale relationship with J Lo -- whose character's actual given name is apparently "Slim" -- turns Brothers Grimm at a laughable drop of a hat: He sweeps this burger-joint waitress off her feet, marries her in a lavish ceremony, buys her dream house, and lies, cheats, and turns violent without warning or provocation. Suddenly, his Mitch is making Snidely Whiplash look Shakespearean, and now it's If I Can't Have You, No One Can: The Movie. Lopez (The Wedding Planner, The Cell) cries a lot and confronts every cliché of the battered-wife movie -- "What did you say to him?" Mitch's mom asks her gently, comforting and accusing in the same moment -- and is told what to feel and do by onscreen placards that emphasize the already too, too obvious: "more than enough," "get out."

She needs to be told these things, however, because even as she "carefully" plans an escape for herself and the inevitable kid, she forgets things like taking some cash out of the bank or getting a credit card in her own name. Gawd's sake, she knows she's married to an omnipotent and omniscient Man (all men are beasts, her friend Juliette Lewis had previously informed her) -- surely, she could have foreseen his total control over the banking system, which would enable him to cut off all her funds. Then again, though he can listen in on her phone calls in anonymous motel rooms and can track the credit-card usage of her friends, he is thwarted when she hops on a city bus whose destination is announced in glowing letters across its face. Even all-powerful Evil can't understand a bus map, I guess.

There's a recurrent thing about not letting the kid, Gracie (the cute Tessa Allen), in on the joke that her d-a-d is a b-a-s-t-a-r-d. Hopefully, she'll never realize how s-t-u-p-i-d her m-o-v-i-e is, either.

"You have the divine animal right to protect your life and your offspring," according to Juliette Lewis, Esq., and while I'm sure that any legal advice coming from such quarters would be suspect, without it we'd never get to the ass-kicking. (Which comes in the last five minutes of the film, by the way -- I like how the advertising for Enough uses its ending as the entire selling point of the flick, but I guess there's never really been any doubt or suspense whatsoever that a tough broad like J Lo could take down a man a full foot taller and a full hundred pounds heavier than she is.) As the film reached its crescendo of absurdity, I amused myself by imagining Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy dissecting the legality of J Lo's self-defense claim: "If you draw your victim into a situation in which he is forced to attack you, and you kill him in response, it isn't self-defense, Adam! It's conspiracy to commit murder!" And Adam would sigh heavily and tell Jack that he'd never win at trial, not once the sympathetic mother and battered wife takes the stand.

Jack, the crazy, moralistic bastard, would prosecute anyway, and lose. Because, as one of Slim's friends reminds her and us, she's a "great person," just in case there was any doubt that she is entitled to plan and carry out her husband's murder.

viewed at a semipublic screening with an audience of critics and ordinary moviegoers
rated PG-13 for intense scenes of domestic violence, some sensuality and language
official site | IMDB
(more below the ad... scroll down...)



who I am


I'm MaryAnn Johanson: writer and ponderer in New York City who drinks too much wine and thinks way too much about such inconsequences as movies, TV, books, and the meaning of life.
[email me]
[become a Facebook fan]
[visit my personal Facebook page]
[follow me on Twitter]
[friend me on MySpace]

FlickFilosopher.com is available on Kindle

• contributor, Film.com
• member, International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
• visit my scratchpad blog, MaryAnnJohanson.com
• read my Doctor Who fan fiction

photo by David Speranza

(postings feed)


top critic on Movie Review Query Engine


as seen on Rotten Tomatoes


member, Online Film Critics Society


member, Alliance of Women Film Journalists

Add to Technorati Favorites

monthly archives

recent screenings and hot movies

just opened (U.S.)
red for no The Twilight Saga: New Moon
yellow for maybe Planet 51
not viewed by me The Blind Side [trailer]
not viewed by me Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans [trailer]
yellow for maybe Broken Embraces
green for go Red Cliff [trailer]
yellow for maybe The Missing Person [trailer]
green for go Precious (expanding)
green for go Fantastic Mr. Fox (expanding)
just opened (U.K.)
red for no The Twilight Saga: New Moon
green for go A Serious Man
green for go The Informant!
box office top 5 (U.S.)
yellow for maybe 2012
red for no A Christmas Carol
green for go Precious
green for go The Men Who Stare at Goats
yellow for maybe Michael Jackson's This Is It
top limited releases (U.S.)
green for go Precious
red for no The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
green for go An Education
green for go A Serious Man
yellow for maybe Coco Before Chanel
box office top 5 (U.K.)
yellow for maybe 2012
red for no A Christmas Carol
not viewed by me Harry Brown
green for go Up
green for go The Men Who Stare at Goats
coming soon (U.S./U.K.)
red for no The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
yellow for maybe Serious Moonlight [trailer]
yellow for maybe A Single Man [trailer]
green for go Everybody's Fine [trailer]
red for no The Strip
green for go The Private Lives of Pippa Lee [trailer]
green for go The Young Victoria [trailer]
green for go Creation [trailer]
green for go The Road [trailer]
green for go The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus [trailer]
other current flicks (U.S./U.K.)
green for go Amelia
red for no Antichrist [trailer]
red for no Astro Boy
yellow for maybe The Box
green for go The Boys Are Back
green for go Bright Star
green for go Capitalism: A Love Story [trailer]
yellow for maybe Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
yellow for maybe Collapse
red for no Couples Retreat
green for go Creation [trailer]
green for go The Damned United
green for go An Education
green for go Five Minutes of Heaven
yellow for maybe The Fourth Kind
red for no Gentlemen Broncos [trailer]
green for go The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus [trailer]
green for go The Invention of Lying
red for no Jennifer's Body
green for go The Messenger [trailer]
green for go Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
yellow for maybe Paranormal Activity
red for no Pirate Radio (aka The Boat That Rocked)
yellow for maybe A Single Man [trailer]
yellow for maybe Where the Wild Things Are
red for no Whiteout
red for no Women in Trouble
green for go Zombieland

2009 screening log

new on dvd

11.17 (Region 1)
green for go Star Trek [buy]
green for go Humpday [buy]
green for go Bruno [buy]
green for go Is Anybody There? [buy]
yellow for maybe The Limits of Control [buy]
yellow for maybe My Sister's Keeper [buy]
yellow for maybe How to Be [buy]
green for go Farscape: The Complete Series [buy]
green for go Gone with the Wind: 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition [buy]
(complete list of this week's new releases at Amazon U.S.)

11.16 (Region 2)
green for go Star Trek [buy]
green for go Moon [buy]
green for go Sunshine Cleaning [buy]
yellow for maybe Four Christmases [buy]
yellow for maybe Tyson [buy]
green for go An Evening with John Barrowman [buy]
green for go Doctor Who: The Key to Time [buy]
green for go South Park: Christmas Time in South Park [buy]
green for go Star Trek Trilogy [buy]
green for go Star Trek: The Next Generation Movie Collection [buy]
green for go Star Trek: Films 1-10 Remastered Special Edition [buy]
yellow for maybe Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2 [buy]
(complete list of this week's new releases at Amazon U.K.)

11.10 (Region 1)
green for go Up [buy]
red for no The Ugly Truth [buy]
green for go The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Second Season [buy]
green for go Ink [buy]
(complete list of this week's new releases at Amazon U.S.)

11.09 (Region 2)
green for go Bruno [buy]
yellow for maybe The Age of Stupid [buy]
red for no Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian [buy]
green for go The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Second Season [buy]
green for go All Creatures Great and Small: Christmas Specials [buy]
(complete list of this week's new releases at Amazon U.K.)

11.03 (Region 1)
green for go The Taking of Pelham 123 [buy]
green for go Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1 [buy]
yellow for maybe Food, Inc. [buy]
red for no G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra [buy]
red for no Aliens in the Attic [buy]
red for no I Love You, Beth Cooper [buy]
green for go North by Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition) [buy]
green for go Doctor Who: The War Games [buy]
green for go Doctor Who: The Black Guardian Trilogy [buy]
green for go National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Ultimate Collector's Edition) [buy]
green for go Mission: Impossible: Complete Series [buy]
(complete list of this week's new releases at Amazon U.S.)

11.02 (Region 2)
green for go Public Enemies [buy]
yellow for maybe Last Chance Harvey [buy]
red for no Year One [buy]
red for no Blood: The Last Vampire [buy]
green for go Wallace and Gromit: The Complete Collection [buy]
(complete list of this week's new releases at Amazon U.K.)

my book (Amazon U.S.)

my book (Amazon U.K.)

advertisements

search

Google
flickfilosopher.com
web