Comfortable and Furious

Enough (2002)

I rented Enough expecting it to be stupid. The site’s called “Ruthless Reviews” so, I feel obligated to see something about which to be ruthless now and then. Jackpot.

The movie is stupid. Incredibly stupid. The premise runs as follows. J-Lo is a sweet, happy waitress who uses the word ‘whom.’  She meets and marries Mr. Right. About three years and one kid later Mr. Right turns into an abusive nut job, as though somebody flipped the switch on his back to “evil.” J-Lo runs away, learns some kickboxing and beats up hubby because, in movies, a woman can take seven kickboxing lessons and defeat a man who outweighs her by 100 pounds. You go girl!

The premise is obviously pretty condescending, but what bothers me is the stupidity of the film. The whole thing is built around the idea that the law doesn’t protect abused women because their husbands can get out on bail and then assault them again, so they can’t call the cops in the first place. Never mind that after the second assault, hubby would be locked up again and sent to prison, and never mind that J-Lo knows perfectly well that he’ll beat her again no matter what she does. She just can’t go to the cops, OK?.

Now, when J-Lo absconds, three friends come to shuttle her away. They are waiting outside and hear the sounds of hubby kicking the shit out of J-Lo. They run into the house to help. Hubby pulls a gun and says “I could shoot you and say it was still dark and I didn’t know who you were.” Yeah, the police would go for that. “Officer, I was stumbling in the dark when three of my wife’s friends showed up unexpectedly and before I knew what was what, I had fatally shot all three of them. In the dark.” Also, he would have to kill his wife, because she would have seen the whole thing. “Oh, right officer. In all the confusion, I thought my wife was a burglar too. I don’t know how she got all those bruises.” Oh, and his daughter is there watching the whole affair as well. “Yeah, I thought it was a midget. You know, like the hamburglar.”

Somehow J-low and friends escape the cunning hubby, but J-Lo still doesn’t want to go to the police, for the reasons already stated as well as the fact that her husband is rich and powerful and she thinks he’ll win custody. At this point, he’s only threatened to murder three people, so we’re still on the fringes of plausibility. Later, J-Lo stays at her ex’s house and hubby sends over three goons who pretend to be FBI and threaten to kill the ex, break into his house and assault him. They’re looking for J-Lo and the kid, but they take all of fifteen seconds looking for clues at the guy’s apartment.

Then hubby sends the same three guys after J-Lo’s estranged father, who is much richer and more powerful than hubby. The goons threaten to kill estranged daddy if he helps J-lo and his granddauhter. At this point in the film, J-Lo not only thinks that she doesn’t have enough to go to the police, she’s still worried about custody. Because a lawyer tells her she would probably loose a custody hearing.

I wonder how exactly the judge would word his ruling. “While it is true that your husband has beaten you and that you have produced three separate and unrelated groups of reputable witnesses from around the country who say that he has committed at least a dozen serious felonies, including threatening to murder six different people, the mother of his child among them, I rule that custody goes to the father and furthermore proclaim that he shall not be prosecuted for these crimes because he is rich. Even though J-Lo is now rich too, via her father. I just hate women. And children. Bwoohahahahahaha ”

Another bit of nonsense: hubby is a total psycho who does everything but take orders from a neighbor’s dog. There is no way he could keep his shit together for three years before flipping out. On top of that, his mother knows everything and finds it all perfectly normal. Hubby has a friend on the PD who feels the same way. I was waiting for hubby to introduce his younger brother, Leatherface.

Eventually, much later than any reasonable person would have, J-Lo takes up her super-rich, super-powerful, and no longer estranged father’s offer of further assistance. I can’t remember why she turns down the offer initially, but my guess is that the script was only 60 pages long at that point. When she finally does accept help, rather than saying, “get me six evil bodyguards and F. Lee Bailey,” J-Lo sets up this elaborate ruse involving a body double, sneaking into hubby’s apartment to spy on him from the rafters and all sorts of other crap. Estranged dad pays for the kickboxing lessons, but not for any kind of weapon whatsoever.

Regular Ratings:

  • Story: 2
  • Direction: 4
  • Acting: 3

Ruthless Ratings:

  • Number of times the movie was paused to do something else: 0
  • Number of times the oppressive soundtrack made you reach for a knife: At least once. There was some Lilith Fair song by Sarah Callahan or someone like that.
  • Number Of Times You Ignored The Bad Acting – 4
  • Number of times you laughed out loud: 4
  • Percentage of the time you were rooting for the husband: 100

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