Enough Review
by Dennis Schwartz (ozus AT sover DOT net)June 5th, 2002
ENOUGH (director: Michael Apted; screenwriter: Nicholas Kazan; cinematographer: Rogier Stoffiers; editor: Rick Shaine; music: David Arnold; cast: Jennifer Lopez (Slim), Billy Campbell (Mitch), Juliette Lewis (Ginny), Dan Futterman (Joe), Fred Ward (Jupiter), Bill Cobbs (Jim Toller), Noah Wyle (Robbie), Tessa Allen (Gracie), Chris Maher (Phil); Runtime: 115; Columbia; 2002)
"Believability wasn't one of the film's virtues."
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Veteran English filmmaker Michael Apted (The World is not Enough) directs with guile this often filmed theme of an abused wife in peril. The director pushes all the buttons to make this a crowd pleaser. In this cliché-ridden melodrama the hubby doesn't stop at abuse, but is out to kill his wife. The twist is that the wife gets revenge by learning martial arts techniques (Krav Maga, the Israeli army's martial art, which is taught to female soldiers). The ridiculous ending to this very topical problem presented, left me muttering that I had enough of "Enough" even before it became too preposterous. This is especially so since the film dragged after its initial scenes setting up the plot line. Its best asset was J. Lo looking vulnerable, likable, sweet, and eventually capable of handling her problem. The baddie, as played by Billy Campbell, used many contrivances which other films already used to make the Campbell character over-the-top. Though his one-dimensional role was frightening it, nevertheless, didn't seem to be anything but taken from a text book sampler on worst case scenarios of abusive hubbies. Screenwriter Kazan dug up nothing pertinent or fresh in this umpteenth 'woman on the run' from dangerous hubby flick.
Slim (Lopez) and her friend Ginny (Lewis) are waitresses in a greasy spoon diner. When a handsome guy (Wyle) tries to date her while she's serving him, an even handsomer customer conveniently in the next booth, Mitch (Campbell), warns her that he overheard the cad make a bet with his pal that he could score her. Mitch, who is the wealthy owner of a construction company, appears as her "Prince Charming," and they soon get married. At the wedding, the ideal man Mitch tells his bride "You're safe with me." They soon have a cute daughter Gracie, to whom Slim devotes her life to.
When Slim accidently answers her hubby's pager (everyone in this flick seems to have a cell phone), she discovers he's cheating on her with another woman. Confronting him results in her getting beat up and him lecturing her that he has a right to have affairs because he earns the money for the family. He also warns her to accept this and not to try to get out of this marriage or she'll be sorry. Trying to tell this to his mother goes for nada. The police can't help they can only give her a restraining order, which she comments is only a piece of paper. So with the help of her diner friends and her surrogate father Phil, she tries to escape in the middle of the night while the nice guy turned monster is asleep. But he awakens and gives her a savage beating. Her friends manage at a risk to their lives to get her out of the house with Gracie.
She flees to her former nice guy boyfriend Joe (Futterman) in Seattle, but Mitch traces every move she makes through his rogue cop friend Robbie. He stalks her, freezes her credit cards, and seems to be omnipresent. After a trio of thugs hired by Mitch show up looking for her at Joe's, she quickly gets a fake passport, a new name, a new haircut, and goes to L.A., San Francisco, and to different parts of Southern California to hide from her evil hubby.
Since Mitch seems to be winning every battle and might even get custody of her precious daughter, she visits her long-lost real womanizer father Jupiter (Ward) and eventually gets enough money from him when he becomes certain that she's really his daughter. She uses the dough to take a crash course in a few weeks to become a martial arts expert, someone who is now equivalent to a black-belt. Believability wasn't one of the film's virtues. It seems according to these filmmakers, that killing Mitch is the only way out of her dilemma. By drawing Mitch into a fight, she can kill him because -- "self defense is not murder."
The film proves to be an exploitive one, that could care less about the plight of abusive women. What it was really after was getting some good action scenes of a hot woman star with a sexy body fighting with a despicable man bully. It gave the viewer some cheap thrills to see the tormentor get his ass kicked.
"Enough" was a slim picture that was never meant to be a nourishing one, it succeeds only as a manipulative work that feeds one's basest instincts with junky thoughts.
REVIEWED ON 5/31/2002 GRADE: C-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
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