Movie Gazette

I shouldn’t laugh. Really I shouldn’t. There’s nothing at all funny about domestic violence. It’s a deadly serious issue. It should be dealt with sensitively, and with sympathy and understanding. Then again, the makers of ‘Enough’ clearly weren’t bothered about that sort of thing, so why should the audience be?

It’s difficult to emphasise just how stupid a film this is. Stupidly entertaining, granted, but stupid nonetheless. It stars Jennifer Lopez as a waitress (what’s that? J-Lo playing a working class type? Well I never!) who goes on the run with daughter Gracie (Tessa Allen) after husband Mitch (Bill Campbell) chucks a wobbler and starts using her as a punch bag.

Having steered well clear of any such sensible courses of action as telling the police or going to hospital, she’s left with no evidence to back up her claims against her pantomime villain-esque hubby. So, like any respectable mommy-from-the-block would, she goes to some intensive self-defence classes and prepares to open up one serious can of whoopass.

For such an awfully scripted, poorly cast, plot hole-strewn and generally badly put-together pile of jobbies, ‘Enough’ is surprisingly watchable. That’s predominantly because seeing it struggle from one improbable contrivance to the next is so fascinating. When first making her escape from Hubby From Hell, J-to-the-L-O attempts a ridiculously intricate night-time escape, instead of simply waiting until he’s at work/with his floozy. At another point, her long lost dad (Fred Ward) starts funding her entire existence despite having only just made it clear that he doesn’t give a monkey’s about her and, in fact, doesn’t even quite believe that she’s really his daughter anyway. Well, let’s face it, there’s not much of a resemblance.

Then there’s the characters’ names. J-Lo’s called Slim Hiller. For one thing, Slim’s not a name, and for another, Hiller sounds far too much like ‘Hitler’. And dad’s called Jupiter. JUPITER! Who in the name of sweet Moses would call their son Jupiter?? And it’s never even SUGGESTED in the course of the movie that anyone might find this guy’s name a little daft. They treat him as if it’s perfectly normal for him to be called Jupiter. Normal! To be called Jupiter! Well, let me tell you, it’s not. If anything, it’s sick.

If director Michael Apted and co had played their part and ironed out all of these faults, then I might have been a little more prepared to play mine and not chortle all the way through it.