Paradise Costs

Rating: 5/10 (26 October 2008)

Bangkok-bound Leonardo DiCaprio (as Richard) drinks six beers during his airplane flight. After landing, the adventure-seeking Mr. DiCaprio drinks snake blood, as a chaser. Then, "Daffy" acquaintance Robert Carlyle meets an unexpected, bloody demise, leaving DiCaprio a map, which is supposed to lead him to a secret island paradise. DiCaprio invites a sexually active young French couple, Virginie Ledoyen (Françoise) and Guillaume Canet (Etienne), to accompany him. They find Carlyle's map leads to "The Beach", a community of "beautiful people" in eternal vacation mode. Soon, DiCaprio finds his life complicated by affairs with the feminine half of his invited twosome, and the older woman who manages the island community, lady dictator Tilda Swinton (as "Sal"). Danny Boyle's "The Beach" spends its first half being pretty, but vacuous. After a graphic shark attack, it turns more bloody, but only slightly less vacuous.
***** The Beach (2000) Danny Boyle ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, Virginie Ledoyen, Tilda Swinton