The website rottentomatoes.com has pasted The Beach. There are a few stray critics who liked the film, but the condemnation is nearly universal. At first, I thought that this might cripple Leonardo DiCaprio's career. But then I realized that it wasn't his fault, but the director's. Perhaps DiCaprio made the mistake of reading Alex Garland's novel rather than the screenplay. I hear that the novel is much better.
The Beach is the latest film by director Danny Boyle, writer John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald. They have made five films together, including the yet unreleased Alien Love Triangle. The most famous of their films was Trainspotting, a strange, incoherent mess that somehow became both a cult favorite and an Oscar nominee for Best Adapted Screenplay. But their days of glory may be over, should The Beach tank quickly at the box office.
The story has Richard (DiCaprio) as a Generation X tourist in Thailand. He's not alone, as Thailand seems be to teeming with attractive twenty-somethings from around the world. He meets a crazy man aptly named Daffy (Robert Carlyle, who is becoming a psycho stereotype). Daffy tells Richard incoherently about a paradise beach. Daffy then kills himself.
Based on the word of this sterling character, Richard takes Daffy's map and decides to go to this island Shangri La. He somehow talks a French couple that he has just met, Etienne (Guillaume Canet) and Francoise (Virginie Ledoyen), to go with him. Upon reaching the island, they survive an encounter with murderous Thai ganja farmers, and join a multi-ethnic commune led by Sal (Tilda Swinton). Life is good, and gets even better when Francoise decides that scrawny Leo is for her. But there is trouble in paradise, as Richard has foolishly left behind a copy of the map for fellow stone-headed tourists to follow in his footsteps. The killer Thai farmers really don't like tourists. Really.
The Beach is two thirds of a mediocre film, and one third of a bad one. Unfortunately, the worst third comes last, getting the final say. The turning point is when Richard is removed from the arms of his gorgeous girlfriend, and forced to play sentry. For some reason he becomes partly a wild jungle man, and partly a lunatic. He has conversations with long dead Daffy, and thinks he's the hero in some video game. These scenes are embarrassingly bad. Later, Richard snivels and cowers shamelessly under the aim of Sal's handgun, making you wish you had never met the coward in the first place. Much less having spent the last two hours with him. (36/100)
Leonardo DiCaprio is electrifying (David Sheehan,, CBS-TV) in this adrenaline-drenched, tantalizingly seductive thriller from the director of Trainspo...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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