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With credibility issues, 'Enough' is not enough
Jennifer Lopez and Billy Campbell
Columbia Pictures
After chasing around the United States and up and down the West Coast for three-quarters of "Enough," all to escape her murderously balmy husband, a woman named Slim (Jennifer Lopez) tries Plan B.
She hires a tutor in a form of Israeli martial arts called Krav Maga and practices thrusting for a month so she can break into her husband's home and bust his chops.
It might be the dumbest, most synthetic deployment of female empowerment to wrap up a damsel-in-distress thriller ever.
But then, "Enough" is committed to out-of-nowhere developments.
Watchable? Absolutely. As directed by Michael Apted, who is much better represented by the current "Enigma," "Enough" zips along trying its darndest to distract you from continuity and credibility canyons.
Nothing is more mysterious than the screenplay being credited to Nicholas Kazan, whose character-driven scripts include "Frances" and "Reversal of Fortune."
Surely, Kazan could do a genre thriller without asking us to be as dim-witted as Slim.
In an exceptionally economic opening sequence, diner waitress Slim (a part originally earmarked for Sandra Bullock) meets and marries developer Mitch (Billy Campbell), who assures her, "You're safe with me, Slim."
Just as quickly, they have a daughter Grace (Tessa Allen), who suddenly is about 5 and not particularly interesting because she's adorable and flawless.
Just be thankful you were spared the gooey romance "Enough" wouldn't have done well anyway. We get the message: six years of uninterrupted bliss.
That's when Slim accidentally intercepts a phone call from some hussy. Meaning Mitch is an adulterer, although that's a word that has fallen into disuse.
And so the clobbering begins. After six clueless, idyllic years? There's no middle ground?
He flaunts his intent to cheat: "I make the money here so I set the rules."
"I love you," she fires back, "but I am not a doormat."
"I refuse to live without you," he says, although what arrangement he thinks she'll agree to in 2002 isn't clear considering Slim's JLo-style assertiveness.
At this point, the film starts breaking faith with the audience with a regularity that is criminal. The battered Slim won't go to an emergency room, much less to the police, because … Gracie needs a safe place to sleep?
Eventually, Slim scoops up Gracie and goes into her own version of the witness protection program, with Mitch and his goons seeming to be omniscient.
Some plot points are plausible: Mitch has cut off the credit cards; he can use phone records to figure out where she might be heading.
I'll even give "Enough" this: It's a dangerous everyday reality that people hound each other and often irrationally pursue child custody, not because they want the obligations or know how to improve damaged relationships but out of a blind quest for self-validation.
So Mitch wants Slim because it's unacceptable to him that anyone could know him and sleep with him and want nothing more to do with him.
But the developments depicted in "Enough" are too incredible too often.
Not the least of its incongruities is the characterization of Slim's biological father, Jupiter, and not because of Fred Ward's performance.
A few other familiar performers turn up, including Dan Futterman as Slim's former boyfriend Joe, Noah Wylie as a diner patron on the make and Juliette Lewis as Slim's waitress pal Ginny.
None could have believed such hokum would be more than finger food.
| Enough |
Director: Michael Apted.
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Billy Campbell, Juliette Lewis.
MPAA Rating: PG-13, for intense scenes of domestic violence, some sensuality and language.
