Baser instinct

>> Enough is a pathetic film for remedial audiences

by JOANNE LATIMER

Sitting through Enough, the latest carbon-copy marital abuse thriller, one hopes we’ll have had enough of this sub-genre. Featuring JLo (née Jennifer Lopez) in the lead, it’s about triumph over a violent husband, striving but failing to be another Sleeping With the Enemy. At the preview screening, I didn’t know what was worse—the vengeful cheering from the audience or the premeditated nature of the murder. There’s something creepy about supporting the Go-Girl mentality when someone ends up dead, even if he is a violent bastard.
JLo looks a little shabby for the entire film. And it’s not shabby chic. Why? You can’t look like a million bucks while you’re planning to kill your husband. It doesn’t play well for sympathy. Her hair gets chopped and her wardrobe comes courtesy of Wal-Mart. She plays Slim, a waitress who gets swept off her feet by a building contractor with anger issues. He’s played by Billy Campbell, who plays dreamy Husband #2 in the television show Once and Again.

Slim slowly twigs on to his womanizing, his temper and the power of his wealth. Apparently he can convince the cops to plant drugs in her purse if she tries to leave the marriage with their daughter. Apparently he has the inclination to track Slim across the country and wiretap her friends and trace her credit cards. (Most womanizers I know would be glad to see the back of The Wife and change the locks.)

But he’s crazy and the only solution is to kill him. The audience knows this, and other pivotal solutions, because we’re given chapter headings, like titles, inserted into the film (like: ‘Get Out’ or ‘You Can Run’). Thus this becomes a chapter film for remedial audiences who can’t follow along.

The only mystery here is the uneven career of director Michael Apted. His films ricochet up and down in quality, from The Coal Miner’s Daughter to Nell. If his salary for directing Enough allows him to make another installment to follow 42 Up, I suppose this lousy JLo vehicle was worth it. :

Enough opens Friday, May 23