Reviewer's Rating 2 out of 5
Enough (2002)
15

In Jennifer Lopez's latest vehicle, a domestic drama in the vein of Julia Roberts' "Sleeping with the Enemy", the Latina diva plays coffee shop waitress Slim (!), who's swept off her feet by charming rich guy Mitch (Campbell).

He's the perfect catch: handsome, wealthy, and devoted to their daughter Gracie (Allen). But no sooner has he been presented as Mr Right than he's turned into an adulterous, psychotic wife-beater.

Desperate to save herself and her daughter, Slim decides the only thing she can do is kill him (bleeding heart liberals should head for the exit at this point).

While it may sound formulaic, the opening half of "Enough" is effective fare, with Lopez playing the outraged but terrified battered wife with surprisingly conviction.

As Mitch tracks Slim and Gracie across the country - dispatching all manner of creepy investigators and bully boys to get his daughter back by any means necessary - Apted gives us a tense popcorn thriller.

But then the movie implodes on itself, turning J-Lo into Rambo and ditching any interest in plot and characterisation.

Taking a month's intensive martial arts training, Lopez learns how to defend herself and then confronts her husband, setting up an elaborate series of booby traps and disguises, as she gets ready to do him in once and for all.

Only in Hollywood could pre-meditated murder be seen as a feminist statement!

Spelling out its Big Idea (hitting women is wrong, killing nasty husbands is morally acceptable) in the simplest terms imaginable, the crassness of this reactionary thriller is matched only by the ridiculousness of its premise.

After all, in a country where guns are as easy to buy as chewing gum, why didn't she just pop a cap in his ass to begin with? Probably because that wouldn't have been Enough.

End Credits

Director: Michael Apted

Writer: Nicholas Kazan

Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Billy Campbell, Tessa Allen, Juliette Lewis, Dan Futterman, Noah Wyle, Fred Ward

Genre: Drama

Length: 115 minutes

Cinema: 29 November 2002

Country: USA

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