It’s a tough task to
make a sequel to a movie like “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” and make it as funny the second time around.
The jokes and language that
were novel the first time, like “he-bitches” and “man-whores,” don’t quite pack the same punch
this time around. This sequel is also missing the attitude the first had, which was done in the spirit of Catskills or Borscht
Belt comics being allowed to work blue. So audiences are left with occasional bits that work, like co-star Eddie Griffin’s
pimp getting more upset at being suspected as gay than as the killer of European gigolos, or sketch-like scenes taking place
at the “European Union of Man-Whores” and the “Man-Whore Awards.”
The biggest influence on star
and co-screenwriter Rob Schneider (from the early to mid-1990s Saturday Night Live) in “Deuce Bigalow - European Gigolo
”
appears to be comedies like Mel Brooks “History of the World: Part I.” Schneider deploys all the crudeness and
outrageousness that movie had with characters like a French king’s “piss-boy” who followed the king with
a bucket. But here the crudeness and outrageousness doesn’t resonate as funny the way it did in “History of the
World.”
The one performer in "European Gigolo"
who seems to get what the movie should be is Schneider's former SNL colleague, Norm MacDonald. As a Scottish gigolo, he has
a couple cameo scenes in which he supplies some of the above-it-all attitude sorely needed here -- and applies it to basic
truths of the scenes -- however slight the premise is.
From the main players, the
brief glimpses of that attitude and outrageousness come only in quick, offhand jokes or one-liners that get laughs more from
their sheer grossness than from their timing or craft. This just isn't enough to recommend “Deuce Bigalow: European
Gigolo” as being as good as the original or other Rob Schneider movies, much less those of a comedy master like Mel
Brooks.
