Why
can't Jennifer Lopez do good movies? Following an impressive and heartfelt turn
in the bio-pic Selena and a terrific performance in Out of Sight, the once In
Living Color fly girl has gone on to turn in mediocre performances in films like
Anaconda and The Cell. In her latest offering Enough, she manages to convey true
star power and a sense of desperation, but the material here is so obvious and
stupid, that her talent comes across as a total waste.
In
Enough, Jennifer Lopez plays a waitress looking for love. She finds it in Billy
Campbell (from TV's Once and Again), a seemingly wonderful man who turns out to
be an absolute monster. After having several affairs and beating up on a helpless
Lopez, things look pretty bleak. Thankfully, Lopez is kept sane by her loving
daughter. Did I mention that all this stuff I just described happens in the first
twenty minutes of the movie? I'm all for cutting to the chase, but Enough has
virtually no story or character development at all. What follows, is a typical
thriller, in which a scared Lopez takes her daughter away, hoping to find happiness
once again. Of course Campbell wont make it easy.
Truth
be told, I actually enjoyed the first half hour of this movie. It was so ridiculous
and over the top that I found it quite amusing. After all, Enough is very calculated
and really only has one purpose. It's goal is simply to make the Campbell character
completely ruthless so that the audience will cheer when Lopez finally kicks his
ass. The problem is, the movie becomes all too familiar and relentlessly dull.
Director
Michael Apted (who's made terrific films in the past) does nothing to elevate
this picture above it's tired material. Think Sleeping With the Enemy and an Eye
for an Eye. While I wasn't a big fan of those pictures either, they were worlds
better than this.
As
I stated, Lopez does have a natural screen presence, but she's trapped in cliched
thriller hell. Her sense of desperation and eventual physical toughness do benefit
the film, but they hardly save it. Campbell and Noah Wyle (TV's ER) trade in their
good guy images, hoping to create a couple of believable creeps, alas it never
works, because their characters are completely one dimensional. I'm sure that
the casting director thought that casting these two likable actors as bad guys
would be a stroke of genius. Unfortunately, they forgot to create interesting,
fully realized characters. It never felt more than a cheap gimmick. Robert Zemeckis
tried the same thing with Harrison Ford in What Lies Beneath and it didn't work
in that film either. Fred Ward has fun as a feisty, tough guy from Lopez's past,
while Juliette Lewis (as interesting as she is) seems completely wasted in an
all too brief part.
Those
looking for an element of surprise in Enough aren't going to get it.
From
the moment Campbell starts beating Lopez up, we know what the eventual outcome
will be. That in itself is fine, but the build up to the obvious conclusion is
a complete bore. Enough is enough already.
