Film Review: Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999)

Prostitution, at least at first glance, doesn’t look like a suitable theme for comedy. That didn’t prevent Hollywood from trying to make such films from time to time. One of the more successful, at least in strictly commercial terms, is Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, 1999 film directed by Mike Mitchell.

Protagonist, played by Rob Schneider, is Deuce Bigalow, a Los Angeles fishtank cleaner who, due to difficult and unglamorous work, doesn’t have much of a love life. Everything is changed when he gets called to work in house owned by Antoine Laconte (played by Oded Fehr), rich and successful gigolo. Laconte is so thrilled with Deuce’s knowledge of ichthyology that he hires him a house sitter while he goes on business trip in Switzerland. Deuce is, however, unfortunate at his new job and damages Antoine’s house. He desperately needs 6000 US$ for repairs before Antoine returns so he decides to take his job and try to make money as gigolo. His efforts fail until he gets experienced pimp T. J. Hicks (played by Eddie Griffin). With his advice he become successful, servicing different women in ways that actually don’t involve sex. There are, however, two problems. He has fallen in love with Kate (played by Arija Bareikis), one of her client. He is also being relentlessly pursued by Charles “Chuck” Fowler (played by William Forsythe), LAPD detective who wants to arrest Antoine on prostitution charges.

Deuce Bigalow was the first film made by Happy Madison Productions, company founded by Adam Sandler. It received a fate very similar to those of many Sandler’s comedies made at the time – it had more decent success at the box office, much to the horror of critics who later complained about audience’s bad taste. While such harsh views among critics often aren’t justified, Deuce Bigalow is actually a very bad film. The main reason is in uninspired script co-written by Schneider and Harris Goldberg, which caters to lowest common denominator and tries to build the film on toilet humour in the style of Farrelly Brothers. While this approach can work with some tiny bit of talent or inspiration, there wasn’t any in this film. Most gags aren’t actually funny and, after a while they are becoming repetitive or simply “borrowed” from other, much more successful films. Plot is predictable and that includes rather syrupy ending that would be more revolting than actual levels of humour. Deuce Bigalow, in order to stick to PG-13 standards of 1990s Hollywood, even fails to exploit opportunities for mild eroticism or more “saucy” content which could have made this film more watchable. References to American Gigolo, Paul Schrader's classic 1980 drama that handled the subject in much better way, make this film look even worse. Despite its bad critical reputation, Deuce Bigalow received sequel in the form of 2005 comedy Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

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