Enough Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)May 24th, 2002
ENOUGH
------
Diner waitress Slim (Jennifer Lopez) is swept off her feet by a chivalrous customer who promises to keep her safe, but by the time their daughter is five, Slim discovers her life is a lie. Stunned to discover
her husband Mitch (Billy Campbell, TV's "Once and Again") is having an affair,
she's even more shocked when he lays down his law and smacks her around for good measure. Even though the odds of getting away with her daughter are hugely stacked against her, Slim decides she's had "Enough."
British director and documentarian Michael Apted ("Coal Miner's Daughter," the "7 Up" series) and screenwriter Nicholas Kazan ("Reversal of Fortune") go slumming with this glossy, pseudo-feminist "Sleeping with the Enemy" clone. The women win here because they're given roles, while the men exist only to terrorize or protect.
With almost laughable economy, Slim's courtship and fairy tale life are established. We're tipped off that Mitch is no good because a) Slim's best buddy Ginny (Juliette Lewis, "The Way of the Gun") encouraged her to go after him, right after encouraging her to go after the sleazy guy Mitch saves her from and b) Mitch smilingly threatens a senior citizen to buy her her dream home. We know trouble's a'brewin because Mitch distractedly frowns at the horizon during a family beach outing. When Slim confronts Mitch with his infidelity it's like a flip has been switched - the man becomes insta-psycho, essentially putting his wife into a lock down.
Barely escaping with daughter Gracie (Tessa Allen, TV's "Providence"), Slim keeps moving and changing identities with the help of her diner boss and father stand-in Phil (Christopher Maher) and ex-boyfriend Joe (Dan Futterman, "Urbania"). Mitch has better resources than the F.B.I., and continually sends his thugs, including hysterically determined nut job Hero (Noah Wyle, TV's "ER"), to track her down (and endanger his own daughter). When Slim's exhausted every legal avenue, she confronts her birth father Jupiter (Fred Ward, "The Right Stuff"), a misogynistic millionaire, to fund her transformation into a Mission Impossible-style ninja warrior.
While Lopez is believable as Slim, her situation rarely is. She acquits herself well, though, as a mother and trained athlete. Juliette Lewis gives the most enjoyable performance as the well-meaning friend with a generous heart. The diner is also well represented by Maher, who makes Phil the type of boss anyone would love to have. Futterman is fine as the sensitive Joe, but the script leaves him largely ineffectual. Campbell and Wyle must have been directed to perform as the Terminator teamed with Cruella de Ville. Young Tessa Allen starts off slow, but grows into a complex and likeable five-year old. Fred Ward's character is a complete head-scratcher.
All the technical credits of this watchable, if completely unnecessary, thriller are first rate.
This Jennifer Lopez vehicle is a fender bender from which she emerges with some scrapes and bruises, but we didn't need to witness her receiving them.
C
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