Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is a 2005 American sex comedy film directed by Mike Bigelow from a screenplay by Rob Schneider, David Garrett, and Jason Wardand. The film is the sequel to Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999). It stars Schneider, Eddie Griffin, Til Schweiger, and Jeroen Krabbé in supporting roles. The plot involves male prostitute Deuce Bigalow visiting his former pimp T.J. in Amsterdam, and looking for a murderer who is killing the greatest "man-whores" of Europe.

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Deuce Bigalow sitting on a bench with the leaning Tower of Pisa in the background as a pigeon is perched on his shoe.
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMike Bigelow
Screenplay by
Story byRob Schneider
Based on
Characters
by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyMarc Felperlaan
Edited by
  • Peck Prior
  • Sandy Solowitz
Music byJames L. Venable
Production
companies
Distributed bySony Pictures Releasing
Release date
  • August 12, 2005 (2005-08-12)
Running time
83 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$22 million[1]
Box office$45.3 million[1]

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo was released in the United States on August 12, 2005, by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film received negative reviews from critics and was nominated for Worst Picture at the 26th Golden Raspberry Awards, while Schneider won Worst Actor. It grossed over $45 million worldwide against a $22 million budget.

Plot

Gigolos in Europe are being terrorized by a serial killer. In Malibu, Deuce Bigalow has lost his wife Kate during a shark attack and is invited by his former pimp friend T.J. Hicks to Amsterdam. Deuce goes to take his mind off of Kate.

After T.J. shows Deuce his boat, the pair go to a coffee shop where they get high and meet Heinz Hummer, a German gigolo. After leaving the coffee shop, Deuce finds Hummer dead in an alley, but thinks he is merely stoned and takes him to T.J.'s boat. When T.J. gets back, he immediately realizes that Hummer is dead. T.J. plans to dump the body, but skeptical of Hummer's reputation of being well-endowed, unzips his pants and examines his genitalia and is caught by a tour boat and labeled by media as a gigolo killer. Deuce is apprehended and taken to the police station where he is interviewed by Gaspar Voorsboch, a police inspector who wants to know of T.J.'s whereabouts.

Upon his release, Deuce finds T.J. at a restaurant and recalls that he saw the killer walking away from Hummer's body. They figure it was a former client of Hummer. T.J. convinces Deuce to find the killer by becoming a gigolo again, visiting the former clients and "rooting" out the killer. Antoine, Deuce's client from the first film, gives Deuce the client list at a restaurant but is killed by the Man-Whore Killer, which is believed to be T.J. when he is caught near Antoine's genitals.

Deuce and T.J. visit the first client on the list. While Deuce distracts the woman, T.J. breaks into her residence and finds a brand of lipstick that might be the kind found on all the victims. After leaving, Deuce finds Gaspar on the street and shows him the lipstick, but Gaspar dismisses it. As Gaspar enters the police station, his niece Eva approaches him and gives him his lunch. Eva slaps herself three times when Gaspar sneezes. Deuce helps her pick up the things she dropped and Eva explains to Deuce that she has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Deuce sees that she has a painting of a fish, so they go to the Amsterdam aquarium together. Deuce continues to investigate different women from Antoine's list. They include Lily, who speaks through an electrolarynx after a laryngectomy, and Svetlana, who has a penis for a nose from being raised in Chernobyl. Eventually, Deuce and T.J. infiltrate the Man-Whore offices, where the Man-Whore Killer murders another gigolo and T.J. is arrested when he again is caught inadvertently holding the victim's charred penis.

Deuce visits Eva's apartment and discovers items used by the Man-Whore Killer. Believing the killer to be Eva, Deuce confides his suspicions to a wary Gaspar, who then reveals himself to Eva as the real Man-Whore Killer before locking her up as a fall girl. Deuce then rides with Gaspar to the Man-Whore Awards Ceremony under the guise of protecting the man-whores.

But when Eva escapes and warns Deuce, Gaspar pulls a gun on Deuce and reveals that he is the real Man-Whore Killer. Gaspar tells Deuce that he was once a man-whore hopeful. While Gaspar was observing a demonstration on how to perform a certain sex act, one of his classmates offered to let him use his penis-enlargement pump. When the demonstration ended, Gaspar was horrified the demonstration was his fiancée. Gaspar was so aghast that he continued to pump until his penis exploded, causing the other men to laugh at him. He blames man-whores for the loss of his fiancée and his penis, and plans to kill them all at their awards ceremony.

At the ceremony, Deuce evacuates the building and gets into a sword fight with Gaspar, during which he mentions non-sexual romantic ways of pleasing a woman; his words move the crowd. Gaspar beats Deuce, but before he can detonate the bomb, Lily and Svetlana distract Gaspar. Lily sprays alcohol all over him through her stoma and then Deuce knocks out Gaspar with a trophy taking the bomb detonator. For his bravery, Deuce is given the Golden Boner award. He kisses Eva and accidentally sets off the bomb when the statue's penis bumps the detonator button. Deuce and Eva leave the scene.

The following day, Deuce and Eva come to pick up T.J., who has been released from jail, and tells them that he is entering a brand new prostitution market: gay man-whoring.

A post-script T.J. stops gay man-whoring and becomes a rapper called MC Extra Nipple where he didn't make any records and was shot several times. Deuce and Eva got married where they are expecting twin gigolos. Gaspar became a gigolo in prison....against his will. Lil' Kim ad a penis enlargement which is now 4 inches wide. Svetlana marries a man with a vagina for a face where everyone vomited uncontrollably at the wedding. A cat featured in the film only worked for food....big hairy balls. Kate's prosthetic leg is turned into a bong by an old Dutch woman.

Cast

The film also includes cameos by Elisabetta Canalis as a castle lady and Dutch actress Chantal Janzen as a Scandinavian porn star. Wes Takahashi, former animator and visual effects supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic, makes a cameo appearance as a news reporter.[2]

Production

Eddie Griffin verified in an interview that "a really old stuffed cat" was used during the cat scene.[3]

Disney rejected the sequel as inappropriate because they wanted the film rated PG-13 (instead of an R rating like the first film). The orphan sequel found a new home at Sony.[4] Disney retains 5% of the box office gross.[5] To promote the film Sony held a "Man-Whore of the Year" contest with Maxim magazine in Las Vegas.[4]

Reception

Box office

The film earned $9.6 million on its opening weekend and debuted in 3,127 theaters. The film grossed $22.4 million in North America and $22.9 million in international markets, grossing $45.3 million worldwide.[1]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo has an approval rating of 9% based on reviews from 100 critics, with an average rating of 3.30/10. The site's consensus states: "A witless follow-up to the surprise 1999 hit, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is raunchy, politically incorrect, and not particularly funny."[6] On Metacritic the film has a score of 23% based on reviews from 25 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[7] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade C+.[8]

Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Every bit as vulgar, sophomoric and thoroughly tasteless as 1999's Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. But what is most annoying is the sequel's capability of inducing laughter even as one hates oneself for so easily succumbing to the total silliness of it all."[9] Robert Koehler of Variety called it "Rude, crude and, uh, cosmopolitan, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo waves the flag for R-rated politically incorrect studio comedy but doesn't top the laugh ratio of the first Deuce misadventure."[10]

Roger Ebert gave the film a rare "zero star" rating, calling it "aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience", and describing it as "completely beneath contempt" on his show Ebert & Roeper.[11] He ranked it as the worst film of 2005, and ultimately included the movie in his most hated films list.[12] Also on Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper called the film "the cinematic equivalent of a bunch of 13-year-old boys in a locker room repeating dirty phrases they've just learned" and "dead on arrival."

Ebert also chastized Rob Schneider for his overly zealous defense of the series, referring to an incident in which Los Angeles Times critic Patrick Goldstein called Schneider a "third-rate comic." Schneider responded by calling Goldstein a "third-rate, unfunny pompous reporter" in a full-page open letter published in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Schneider further claimed that Goldstein was unqualified to review the film since he was not a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Ebert, having won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975, took it upon himself to criticize Schneider in his own review:

"Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times[11]

The quote "Your movie sucks" would later become the title of a book published by Ebert compiling reviews of films he had awarded below 2/4 stars.[11]

Ebert and Schneider ultimately settled their differences, and Schneider sent his well wishes to Ebert during his recovery from thyroid cancer. Ebert responded, "Rob Schneider might (in my opinion) have made a bad movie. He is not a bad man."[13] After Ebert's death, in a letter to his widow Chaz, Schneider admitted that the situation caused him to "reassess what pictures I really wanted to make."[14]

Schneider, years later, would admit in retrospect he was disappointed with the film, feeling it lacked the "heart" of the first installment.[15]

Accolades

The film was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Screen Couple (Rob Schneider and his diapers) with Schneider winning Worst Actor.[16]

References
  1. "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005)". The Numbers. Nash Information Services, LLC. Retrieved May 13, 2023.
  2. "Subject: Wes Ford Takahashi". Animators' Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 12 August 2016. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  3. Fischer, Paul (10 August 2005). "Interview: Eddie Griffin for "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo"". Dark Horizons. Archived from the original on 18 April 2015. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  4. McNary, Dave (July 31, 2005). "'Deuce' is too wild for Mouse". Variety. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  5. Fleming, Michael (February 26, 2004). "'Deuce' wild in Sony sequel". Variety. Archived from the original on March 28, 2019. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  6. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo at Rotten Tomatoes
  7. "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2020-07-22. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  8. "DEUCE BIGALOW: EUROPEAN GIGOLO (2005) C+". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20.
  9. "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo". The Hollywood Reporter. 8 December 2005. Archived from the original on 2005-12-08.
  10. Koehler, Robert (11 August 2005). "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo". Variety. Archived from the original on 22 July 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
  11. Roger Ebert (2005-08-12). "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo". rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on 2020-02-27. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  12. Ebert, Roger (2005-08-11). "Ebert's Most Hated". rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on 2020-03-03. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  13. "A bouquet arrives". Rogerebert.com. May 7, 2007. Archived from the original on February 27, 2020. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  14. Ebert, Chaz. "ONE ACT OF KINDNESS: ROB SCHNEIDER AND ROGER". Rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on 3 December 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  15. Clint, Caffeinated (6 November 2008). "Big Stan". Moviehole.net. Archived from the original on 22 July 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2020. (The main reason Schneider disliked the "Deuce" sequel is he said it lacked the heart of the original film – it was all smut jokes, without the sweet spot.)
  16. "Tom Cruise Beats 4 Others (Including Himself) to Be RAZZIES©' Most Tiresome Tabloid Target of 2005"". Press release. Archived from the original on 2006-03-25.
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