Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)December 11th, 1999
PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
Adam Sandler wields more power in Hollywood than you might think. Or hope. He’s grossed over $325 million at the box office over the last thirteen months with his last two critically panned films (Big Daddy and The Waterboy). Sure, it’s impressive, but it pales in comparison to his latest feat – producing a feature film (using his new production company, Happy Madison) starring his ex-Saturday Night Live castmate Rob Schneider.
Even the official site for Deuce Bigelow mocks the qualifications of its unlikely lead, stating that the film stars the "You can do it and delivery guy,” both references to Schneider’s tiny roles in the last two Sandler vehicles. Here Schneider stars as the titular Bigelow, a fish expert fired from his aquarium job after cleaning the fish tanks in the nude. He lives in the barrio, collects Canadian quarters, and his sex life consists of conning a pet store bimbo to dip the front of her white cotton t-shirt into a fish tank while scooping out its contents.
Losing his only source of income, Deuce turns to cleaning residential fish tanks. One of his clients is Antoine Laconte (Oded Fehr, The Mummy), a dreamy male prostitute than earns $3,500 per session. As Laconte prepares to leave for Switzerland for a three-week business trip (!?), Deuce informs him that his Japanese fighting fish (like from The Naked Gun) has a rare and potentially life-threatening gill disorder. Since the next forty-eight hours are crucial to the health of the fish, Laconte allows Deuce to stay at his house to nurse his battling buddy.
Long story short, Deuce accidentally trashes Laconte’s beautiful home and tries to become a gigolo to earn the money necessary to fix things up. Within the first thirty minutes of the film, Deuce has punched a hooker in the rear-end, had his inner ass-cheeks waxed, been caught watching pornography by a faux Girl Scout and teamed up with a pimp named T.J. Hicks (Eddie Griffin , Malcolm & Eddie), who hysterically refers to his new trick-turner as a “he-whore” with a “man-gina.”
As Deuce tries to earn his money back Risky Business-style, he has numerous encounters with odd women, all of which have been previously exposed in the film’s trailer. Among the film’s funnier segments are those that involve Detective Chuck Fowler (William Forsythe, Blue Streak), a LAPD vice cop with a serious hang-up about the girth of his penis, and the blind roommate of one of his Janes. Bigelow runs through just about every dick and shit joke possible in a ninety-minute film, as well as hysterically spoofing The Matrix twice.
Bigelow is the screen debut of Mike Mitchell, who directed the script written by Schneider and Harris Goldberg (I’ll Be Home for Christmas). There isn’t much to the story, which I think is the aquarium love story script that Albert Brooks’ character wrote in The Muse. If you plunk down your money thinking that the film will be an Oscar contender, you’ll be disappointed. But if lowbrow humor is your game, then Bigelow will be right up your alley.
1:30 – R for adult language, numerous sexual references and mild violence
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