Why you can trust 12DOVE
Sweet Jesus, if only Jennifer Lopez had the taste to match her obvious talent and impressive derrière. Okay, so we can't expect her to appear in movies of Out Of Sight's calibre every time - - Hollywood doesn't come up with too many of those - - but Angel Eyes? The Wedding Planner? The Cell? Surely it's time she bagged a script at least half worthy of her abilities?
This month's under-achiever sees La Lopez playing Slim, a greasy-spoon waitress who falls for and marries hunky rich boy Mitch (Bill Campbell), spawns a cute little rugrat and heads off to live in suburban contentment. Awww, sweet! But wait, all is not well in the garden of clichés. Twinkly-eyed Mitch is in fact a glassy-eyed psycho (an easy mistake to make) who sleeps around and then gives Slim a sound thumping when she dares to criticise him for it. Slim takes the rugrat and flees, but Mitch vows to find her wherever she hides...
So far, so Sleeping With The Enemy. But once Slim runs, this wannabe cause célèbre movie really tips off the edge into common sense freefall. Soon Mitch has an unexplained army of nutjob goons searching for his missing missus; Slim's getting cash from her long-lost millionaire dad; and dopey action sequences are being shoehorned in like car chases are going out of style. And that's all before we get to the much ballyhooed bloodbath ending. Far be it from us to spoil it for you, so let's just say that it involves Slim transforming from suburban housewife into martial arts ninja and dishing out some legally dubious but presumably morally righteous payback.
All of which Lopez does very well - - we all know that few actresses are better at playing tough. The trouble is the weak-willed, inconsistency-strewn movie around her, which floats on a leaky raft of unwarranted smugness (unbelievably, it really does fancy itself as the 21st century Fatal Attraction).
Enough? That'll be more than enough, thank you very much.
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