But Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo isn't the slightest bit interested in what motivates a hustler to choose his line of work. Instead, it's preoccupied with what kind of hideous disfigurement would drive a woman to seek the services of a "prostidude" (the implication being that only the most desperate of women would ever have to pay for sex). Where narcoleptics, Tourette Syndrome sufferers and lonely prosthetic-limbed women dominated the original, the sequel graduates to such clients as a woman with a hole in her throat and another with a penis for a nose (one wonders what use such a person would have for a gigolo).

The first Deuce Bigalow movie was unique not so much for the novelty of its main idea (in which a schlubby house-sitter is mistaken for a gigolo), but because it was willing to stoop to the kind of crude and obvious humor most self-respecting comics aspire above. The sequel merely applies the same formula to a Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?-style murder mystery.

Granted, no one said it was easy risking your reputation to make ribald comedy hits (just look how long it's taken Adam Sandler, who serves as one of the film's producers, to earn his peers' respect). Unfortunately, Rob Schneider's shtick still amounts to little more than shameless self-deprecation. It's as though he'll do anything for a laugh -- except elevate the humor itself.

If there's one thing Schneider most certainly does not have a sense of humor about it's criticism. In February, he took out a full-page ad in Variety attacking columnist Patrick Goldstein, who'd written an unflattering comment in The Los Angeles Times. Last year, when the Academy suggested that it would be less inclined to reject Schneider's membership after the actor had ''turned in a strong performance, comic or otherwise, that showcases additional strengths,'' he reportedly replied, "All I wanted was the free DVDs! Jesus Christ! That's the only reason anybody joins the Academy!"

The way I see it, anyone who's made up his mind to see Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo deserves everything they've got coming to them, and with any luck, they might even enjoy the movie's willfully offensive gutter humor (suffice it to say, the movie's biggest laugh comes when the woman with the unusual nasal condition described above sneezes into the soup of a very proper gentleman). How can any critic compete with that?

[as featured in The Miami Herald]