GIGLI

(one star)

Ugly.

Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (language, gore, violence, sex). At the Empire, the Lincoln Square, the Orpheum, others.

IT isn’t the fault of Ben Affleck or Jennifer Lopez or any of their supporting cast that “Gigli” is such a stinker.

The two stars do, it turns out, have ample on-screen chemistry, and Lopez is actually better here than in any of her movies since “Out of Sight.”

The latter was, like “Get Shorty,” an adaptation of one of Elmore Leonard’s witty tough-guy novels. And the problem with “Gigli” is that it is an inept attempt to do Elmore Leonard by Martin Brest, a filmmaker whose coarse sensibility makes him catastrophically unqualified to the task.

In “Gigli,” writer-director Brest (responsible for “Meet Joe Black”), reveals a penchant for ugliness and vulgarity that was only hinted at in the “poontang” speech in his “Scent of a Woman.”

His is a sensibility so unpleasant, especially when it deals with anything to do with sex, that scene after scene makes you want to take a shower.

His dialogue – and “Gigli” features some of the most embarrassing writing of any movie made in the last decade – is clearly supposed to express an earthy sexual sophistication.

But – witness the now notorious “gobble gobble” invitation to oral sex – it’s just crude and clueless and reeks of loathing for both male and female sexuality.

Affleck’s Gigli is a dimwitted enforcer for an L.A. mobster; J.Lo’s Ricki is a wise, wry, sexy, literate enforcer sent to make sure he does his job properly.

This job involves kidnapping a mentally handicapped youth (Justin Bartha, who looks like a young clone of Chris O’Donnell) to put pressure on the boy’s father, a federal prosecutor. (We’re never told precisely what’s wrong with the young man, but it appears to be a combination of mental retardation and Tourette’s syndrome.)

It isn’t clear if the material involving the kidnapped boy (all of it shamelessly ripped off from “Rain Man”) is supposed to be funny or disturbing.

In the end, it’s too trite to be moving, but it casts a depressing shadow on the romance and the comedy.

There is nothing unexpected or interesting in the way the two mobsters fall for each other, or the way Affleck’s character’s essential decency beneath a callous, immature exterior is brought out by his interactions with his young hostage.

Lopez’s character doesn’t undergo any change at all, but like Madonna in the execrable “The Next Best Thing,” the singer/actress gets to show off her yoga moves and toned muscles at some length.

She looks terrific, but even her remarkable sex appeal isn’t enough to distract you from the idiocies coming out of her mouth.

In the movie’s one genuinely enjoyable sequence, Christopher Walken (as a detective) sends a blast of fresh air across the movie’s general rancidness, even though it’s a bizarre performance, over the top even for him.

And in another supporting role, Al Pacino is back in the eye-popping shouty mode that reached its nadir in Brest’s “Scent of a Woman.”

All the characters – including those who are supposed to be L.A. born and bred – have Noo Yawk accents, as if that’s the way all criminals speak.