In the tradition of slapstick comedies, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo presents Rob Schneider as a starring figure. Schneider, who has been seen in such movies as Judge Dredd, The Waterboy, and Big Daddy, proves here that he can in fact helm a movie, but also shows that he isn't quite up to the level of some of his slapstick "competitors."

Deuce is a loser fish-tank cleaner who by chance gets a job watching a male gigolo's expensive fish while he is out of town. Of course, Deuce destroys the $6,000 tank and is forced to become a gigolo himself to fix everything before the guy gets back.

The first half of the movie is hilarious. Schneider is one funny guy and the situations he gets into are pretty funny himself. He gets stuck with all the loser jobs, such as a gigantic fat woman, an eight-foot tall woman, a one-legged woman, and so forth. These dates are pretty hilarious, but they grow old after a while. Deuce Bigalow is plagued by the ever-so-common moral syndrome, which states that Deuce must fall in love with someone and therefore starts questioning how morally sound everything he is doing is. Basically, instead of being non-stop stupid and straightforward humor, the comedy begins to fade and be taken over by Deuce's conscience.

The second half suffers from this and also just by bad writing. It seems as though there are several jokes in the second half, but none of them strike with as much strength as similar jokes did in the first half. The writers seemed so obsessed with making the first half satisfying that they forgot the second half was even there.

Luckily, Deuce Bigalow does have enough jokes to satisfy the normal movie-goer, especially those who like Adam Sandler and Norm MacDonald movies (or any ex-SNL starring movies). It might not be the biggest fish in the sea, but its not the smallest.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.