Eye For Film >> Movies >> Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999) Film Review
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
Reviewed by: Angus Wolfe Murray
Even the title is rubbish. There isn't such a thing as a female gigolo. It's a guy job, officially "a professional male dancing partner", except in this case the word "prostitute" comes to mind. Deuce Bigalow (Rob Schneider) calls himself "a man whore" and charges $10 a pop.
The movie hangs on whether Schneider has screen appeal. Last seen in Big Daddy, he is born to play third fiddle. His goofy persona is not distinctive enough to stand out amongst the losers. Deuce is an LA pool cleaner and a bit of an expert on tropical fish. At the pet shop he gets the girl to lean over the counter-top aquarium so that he can cop a thrill at her wet tee shirt. The jokes sink lower later, don't worry.
He slips into the gigolo business by mistake when fish-sitting for Antoine (Oded Fehr), a high class callboy. His experiences in the skin trade are with freaky women.
He falls in love with the first normal one (Arija Bareikis), only to discover that she's not so normal after all. Schneider is the latest of Saturday Night Live's ex-pats to go large. Either the quality of the show has slipped off the scale, or American humour is affected by a junk food mentality.
Reviewed on: 19 Jan 2001