Enough

Women of the world unite! Now that perennial woman in distress Ashley Judd is moving on to bigger (but not necessarily better) things, Jennifer Lopez is stepping in to take her place. Like Judd, Lopez can be a fantastic actress, but she has a habit of picking atrocious material. Enough skims along the bottom as a battered woman revenge fantasy movie that plays out like clumsily. It is a rule in movies that when a relationship is perfect, one of the people in it must be a psycho. In Slim's (Lopez, Angel Eyes, The Wedding Planner) marriage, that psycho is her husband Mitch (Billy Campbell, Max Q., The Brylcreem Boys). Mitch, a well-to-do handsome gentleman, swept Slim, a simple diner waitress, off her feet in a whirlwind romance. Now, the two live a happy life with their young daughter Gracie (Tessa Allen). Slim discovers that Mitch is cheating on her, and Mitch goes ballistic. All of a sudden, he changed from a loving, doting husband to a homicidal maniac.

Most of the movie involves Slim running across the country to evade Mitch, moving only when he discovers her whereabouts. See, Mitch has these seemingly magical powers where he can hire suited thugs to harass Slim's friends, tap into her phones, and trace her every move. Slim has morbid stupidity going for her. Her choice not to report any of this to the police flies in the face of any rational human being. Instead, she moves from city to city with the help of her friend Ginny (Juliette Lewis, The Way of the Gun, Picture Claire) and ex-boyfriend Joe (Dan Futterman, Urbania, Shooting Fish). When this becomes too much, she decides she must take matters into her own hands. With the help of her dad Jupiter (Fred Ward, Corky Romano, Summer Catch), an internet millionaire who abandoned her as a baby (no joke), she embarks on an elaborate plan to deceive Mitch. She also takes training lessons so that when the time comes, she can beat the crap out of him. People know that Lopez is tough near the end. After all, she has a swagger and squints her eyes. Pansies don't do this.

Lopez does deserve some credit. She is a good enough actress that the movie feels better than it should. Her plight does have some resonance, until about the midway point when stupidity takes over. Enough also marks a bad career choice for Noah Wyle (Fail Safe, Donnie Darko), who has one of the many, unintentionally funny roles. Enough is even more baffling given the ability of talent behind the camera. Director Michael Apted (Enigma, The World is Not Enough) and writer Nick Kazan (Bicentennial Man, Homegrown) each have had their turkeys, but both, especially Apted, are capable of quality work. For something along the lines of Enough to come along, it's almost as if they had to try to make something as bad as this. Any sort of tension of drama bogs itself down in the lame twists and turns of the plot. The plot is entirely ludicrous, and trivializes the serious issue of domestic abuse in its portrayal. This feels more like a made-for-television movie than a film. The woman's revenge genre is already running on empty, and this movie does nothing to help its viability.

Haro Rates It: Pretty Bad.
1 hour, 51 minutes, Rated PG-13 for intense scenes of domestic violence, some sensuality, and language.

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