Main cast: Rob Schneider (Deuce Bigalow), William Forsythe (Detective Chuck Fowler), Eddie Griffin (TJ Hicks), Arija Bareikis (Kate), Oded Fehr (Antoine Laconte), Gail O’Grady (Claire), and Richard Riehle (Bob Bigalow)
Director: Mike Mitchell
Waste of time. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo starts out promising, but it soon resorts to a lame set of sad clichés for laugh. The only way this movie can work is if it goes all-out to offend, but it is too timid, however, and towards the last hour it starts preaching as if to make up for its offensive humor. Ugh.
Deuce Bigalow is a sad loser of a fish tank cleaner who, one day, finds himself taking care of the house wealthy gigolo and dangerous dude Antoine (Oded Fehr, yummy yum yum). The idiot wastes no time destroying the house and the very expensive aquarium. In three weeks Deuce would have to find lots of money to replace all the broken things.
So meet Deuce Bigalow, the best gigolo $10 can buy.
Of course, this movie plays on the assumption that only seriously flawed women would hire a gigolo. Hence we meet the grossly overweight Jabba Lady, a gigantic giantess, Ruth who is suffering from exaggerated Tourette syndrome, a woman who keeps falling asleep, and finally, Kate, the woman our hero falls for. Kate has only one leg, by the way, and hence feels unworthy of love. Deuce employs a lot of non-sexual techniques to keep these clients happy. See what I say about the movie being too timid?
There’s also a smart-mouthed pimp who’s actually very funny, a cop who is hypochondriac when it comes to his wonky who’s not funny, and Deuce’s toilet-cleaning Daddy who looks as if he just realized too late that he was in the wrong movie.
There are some inspired moments, like Deuce picking up a prostitute in a mix-up (and the following The Matrix-inspired fight scene!), or when TJ the pimp explains to Deuce that he is the lowest of the low in the gigolo hierarchy. Deuce’s way to make Ruth feel secure is creative, I must say.
But everything else is nothing but lame, unfunny jokes that get more monotonous with each repetitions.
But there’s a saving grace though: Rob Schneider is surprisingly earnest as a man who actually cares for the women he “services”. His confession of love to Kate, which is pretty gross, is also surprisingly heartfelt. There may just be a good chance that he would be a great lead in a romantic movie. Maybe.
