Ripping a page from the Ashley Judd handbook, Jennifer Lopez kicks Billy Campbell's ass from one side of the screen to the other in Enough, Michael Apted's revenge fantasy/thriller. And the audience I saw the movie with cheered her on like she was Stone Cold Steve Austin in full payback mode. The movie is structured like a WWF smackdown, Lopez absorbing blow after blow as Campbell, having tricked her into marriage, first cheats on her, then beats on her. But imagine if Mr. Austin, in addition to pile-drivers and scissor-kicks, had perfected Krav Maga, a martial art so sneakily powerful that most of us haven't even heard of it. When Lopez shows up at Campbell's place wearing a skin-tight, all-black, heaving-cleavage number, you can practically hear the men in the audience thinking, "Uh-oh."
Poorly scripted, poorly cast and poorly acted, Enough is nevertheless satisfying in a crude, vengeful way. It delivers, even if what it delivers are kicks. Campbell wouldn't exactly have been my first choice to play a sociopathic wife abuser, having just limned the perfect husband in "Once and Again." But maybe that's what Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter, but also Nell) was going for ' counterintuitive casting. Which would explain why Campbell's partner in crime is played by...Noah Wyle! (Was Deepak Chopra unavailable?) As for Lopez, she's effective in the early scenes, where she's a waitress with a Sandra Bullockian snap, but I had trouble buying her as a one-woman commando unit. No one else seemed to have that problem, I should add, especially the gentleman sitting next to me, who gasped every time Lopez showed her backside.
Whether kicking ass or shaking same, Lopez is certainly a pleasure to watch, but the movie doesn't speak to her star-next-door strengths. It's all gotcha moments, a slasher flick with fists instead of knives. If you want a realistic examination of what an abused spouse goes through, you'll need to look elsewhere. If you want to see J. Lo open a can of whup-ass, Enough is enough.
