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Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (20th April 2006). |
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The Film
 I remember watching this film when it first came out about 7 years ago thinking that it was quite funny, the film has it’s moments but the danger in revisiting some films, especially comedies after several years and not finding them funny anymore. After all I have done a fair bit of growing up over the years and my sense of humor has evolved. So with much trepidation I pooped this disc into my player and the results were as a I feared, this movie was certainly not as funny anymore. My major question however is, does anyone really find Rob Schneider funny anymore? Comedy is a rather subjective form to be sure, but Rob Schneider? Surely he’s run his course and why would anyone think that a sequel is a good idea (2005’s Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo), that remains a mystery to me. Thankfully I don’t have to review the awfully unfunny sequel as well. In fact Schneider probably wouldn’t be making films if it wasn’t for his buddy and former SNLer Adam Sandler who plays the role of executive producer on this farce. Thanks Sandler, thanks a lot, jerk! Deuce Bigalow is a loser; he cleans fish tanks for a living and basically optimizes the dateless idiot with hardly a redeeming factor to him. One day while cleaning a pond filled with exotic fish for a rich well to do man about town, Antoine (Oded Fehr) who is everything a woman could want (or so the filmmakers would like us to think), he’s handsome, wealthy and knows how to pleasure a woman. Antoine has to fly to Europe to please some bored housewife who needs a good lay and leaves the care of his sick tropical fish and more importantly his house to Deuce, after only just meeting him (what? You have to be kidding?). Deuce being the clumsy idiot that he is breaks his fish tank he realizes that he has to replace it and fix the house before Antoine returns to kill his sorry ass. He eventually becomes a gigolo and whores himself to women for money, at first unsuccessfully until he meets a pimp, T.J. Hicks (Eddie Griffin) who helps him become a he-bitch to sell his mangina (that’s right, his mangina, the male vagina). Deuce meets a variety of crazy women, all in this film for comedic effect, there’s the large black lady, the incredibly tall woman, the woman with a prosthetic leg, a narcoleptic, and the girl with turret’s who can’t control her swearing. Deuce, although a gigolo doesn’t sleep with these flawed women but instead finds ways to make them feel good about themselves (herein lies the moral lesson in the film). This film plays out like a series of failed sketch ideas from SNL, or failing that from Schneider’s own comedy routines, one scenario after another leads our bumbling hero to what I can only assume is comedy. Usually of the crass nature and almost always pokes fun at the crazy women that Deuce is contracted to, the filmmakers come off as overly insensitive and rude but they make up for this by injecting a message about how to feel better about oneself, as if this gives them an excuse to humiliate people with disabilities. Eddie Griffin provides the Yoda-like mentor that guides our hero into these crazy situations. The gags are a plenty and they never seem to stop. His character is occasionally funny however his routine gets stale quickly. Perhaps I’m being a little too hard on this film, after all it is a comedy and I shouldn’t take it too seriously but when you’ve seen higher caliber stuff why would you want to go back to stupid inane drivel such as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo? This is the perfect kind of fare for 14 year-old boys or any adult that still has a 14 year-old personality. The point is if this is your sort of thing then by all means check it out, hell even buy the DVD. If it’s not then perhaps give this one a miss, you’re not really missing anything noteworthy anyway - and let’s hope that Schneider’s career comes to an end real soon.
Video
Presented in its original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1, this widescreen anamorphic image doesn’t seem to be an improvement over the previously released edition. In fact it’s probably the same exact transfer. Sharpness is consistent however the image appears too flat, there doesn’t seem to be too much depth, however that could be choice of lens the scene was shot other than flaws with the transfer. Colors are bright and skin tones are spot on, I could not see any evidence of color bleed. I did notice that there were instances of edge enhancement and pixilation mainly in black and dark areas.
Audio
Two audio options are included here, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 track plus a French Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround track. For the purposes of this review I chose to view it with its English soundtrack. This is your fairly average track nothing spectacular and nothing all that bad either. It serves the film quite well and includes some surround activity whenever the scene sees fit otherwise the dialogue is clear and distortion free which is all you can ask for in this case. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired and in French.
Extras
First up we have the Making the Deuce featurette which is your typical EPK style promotional piece that has interviews with all the actors and key crew tell you about the film and how great it is working with these people and how much fun it was making this film. This is cut with behind-the-scenes footage. Next we have the Director’s Video Diary featurette which is footage shot by the director while on set, kind of like a day in the life sort of thing. Some funny moments but this is home video stuff except he’s not at home but on a film set. 7 deleted scenes are what you’d find next, these are all in rough condition with time codes imbedded, no intros of commentary explaining why they were cut out however that becomes painfully obvious when you view the scenes that they aren’t anything special. The scenes included here are: - Deuce Feeds His Fish and Chinese Restaurant here Deuce has a talk with his fish and then is seen at a Chinese restaurant cleaning out their fish tank. - Deuce Rescues Lobsters the same Chinese restaurant from the previous scene, except in this one Deuce steals two lobsters in an attempt to save them from being someone’s dinner. - Deuce Meets Antoine’s Russian Landlord The landlord confronts Deuce about why he’s staying over at Antoine’s. - Deuce in Training T.J. trains Deuce to be a man-whore in this montage sequence. - T.J. Escorted From the Poolside Hotel staff ask him to leave after he’s met with Deuce. - Deuce Cheered up by his Friends His friends help clean up and fix Antoine’s house and they all try to cheer him up as he’s depressed about losing Kate. - The Fowler’s Wedding the Fowler’s renew their vows and everyone from the movie his here to celebrate, clips from this were used in the final credits recapping what happened to the characters. Following that are a collection of 5 Fly On The Set featurettes, these are all fairly short and show you some behind-the-scenes footage from the filming of key scenes in the film, the clips included are: - Deuce Meets Antoine - Fish Tank Breaks - Deuce Orders a Drink - Deuce Meets T.J. - The Fowler’s Wedding Rounding out the extras are a collection of bonus trailers, these can be accessed from the menu however they are also start-up previews and play automatically before the menu, to skip them all you have to do it press the Menu button on your remote. You get the following previews: - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - Casanova - Glory Road
Overall
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