Those who know the name Martin Brest—and only industry insiders and hardcore cinephiles do—remember the director as a lost man. The Bronx-born director made three hugely successful films in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, although each one took a different path to its place in the canon. 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop was an immediate smash, with most of the credit and attention going to its ascendant star, Eddie Murphy. 1988’s Midnight Run was a more modest hit, but it has grown in estimation over the years; long before De Niro’s shameless mugging phase, the film finds him layering comedic warmth over his tough guy persona. It’s actually his best performance. Finally, there was 1992’s Scent of a Woman, in which Brest ascended to Oscar glory. He didn’t win an Oscar for himself (although he was nominated for Best Director and Best Picture), but he was a winner by association: he directed Al Pacino to his long-awaited, first-ever Academy Award.
Despite these successes, Brest’s name has since become synonymous with failure, otherwise known as Gigli, the painful 2003 rom-com starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez as a mobster and his kidnap victim. The film came at the height of the “Bennifer” phenomenon—photos of the couple out in public were unavoidable at the time—and the public was just ready to turn on them. It didn’t help that the film was terrible: poorly plotted, unfunny, with no chemistry between its stars, and a portrayal of intellectual disability by a non-disabled actor (The Hangover’s Justin Bartha) that looked horrible in 2003 and even worse now with our increased sensitivity to issues of representation.
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