Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo review

Is Deuce Bigalow the most inane and daft comedy franchise Hollywood has ever spawned? It’s definitely scraping the barrel. Will it make you laugh like a drain? Depends whether you get off on Rob Schneider’s insanely stupid and puerile brand of humour or not. Which, it’s fair to say, most people don’t, Schneider flying low under the film-comedy radar, dismissed by many as a sub-Sandler moron. But for those who recognise the unique genius of the star of The Hot Chick, The Animal and the original Deuce, the ex-Saturday Night Liver is Peter Sellers, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray all rolled into one diminutive, laff-riot package. (Okay, so maybe we get a bit carried away...)

With Bigalow Part Deux, Schneider seems to be on a one-comedian crusade to keep the gross-out genre alive, even though the rest of Hollywood left it behind long ago. And you have to admire his chutzpah: from the gynaecological presentation of a sexual act referred to as the Portuguese Breakfast, to a Chernobyl-born she-john with a penis where her nose should be (anatomical correctness extending to the fluid that shoots out when she sneezes), there really is no such thing as going too far in Schneider-land. And European Gigolo doesn’t even strive to be an equal-opportunity offender, with cracks aimed at under-endowed Asian men and aspersions cast on TJ’s sexuality (“I ain’t gay! I just heard his schlong was big and juicy...” etc).

More slapdash than its predecessor, the film fires blanks as often as it hits the target, spending too much time on the whodunnit plot and Deuce’s romance with a buxom Dutch wench, rather than simply keeping the chuckles flowing courtesy of his run-ins with European clients suffering from bizarre afflictions. Some gags are so painfully laboured you’ll wish you had a gun to put them out of their misery, but – even if you’re the vaguest of fans – others will trigger rivers of laughter-shaped tears. Best not to take your mum to this one: she might think you actually know what a Turkish Snowcone is.