Kids Stuff

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2000)

Rinsing a potentially interesting movie in exotic Thai beach water and then perfuming it with the essence of Leonardo DiCaprio will probably make a few million for its producers but only because teenage girls (or more succinctly their parents!) buy that sort of rubbish.
There are hints of all sorts of things in The Beach but it actually delivers little more than Leo and scenery. Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Lord Of The Flys and The Blue Lagoon were given reference but all of those films, even Lagoon, had more coherence than this polluted, small, scenic stretch of sand.
Of course there are some high points and they deserve a quick and early mention just in case you think I'm not female and fourteen.
Robert Carlyle, always terrific is again remarkable as a Scottish madman in The Beach's Apocalyptic Martin Sheen scene. But he's only on show for about 15 minutes.
And call me corny but I thought that the video game sequence, while DiCaprio was doing his Deer Hunter bit, or was it Rambo, was funny.

But the rest was a series of boys own adventures; those of a a not so Quiet American in a secluded Asian backpacker's resort.
Richard (DiCaprio) lands, as millions of young Americans have, in Thailand looking for cheep dope, women and a good time. He checks into a dingy hotel, meets the mad Daffy Duck (Carlyle) who for his own crazy reasons gives Richard a mysterious map.
Richard heads off to find a mystical Beach with the French pair who he'd listened to screwing the night before through thin hotel walls.
An adventure of two later finds the intrepid trio crawling through a commercial field of dope trying to avoid a nasty lot of Thais with guns. (And I'm no botanist but i reckon that the so called plant exhibited was what we call in Cairns Stinking Roger.)
Anyway, da da, before you know it our heroes have escaped and have reached the beach we're all seeking; the one where just about everyone is slim, definitely childless and in holiday mood. Endless beach volleyball, group singing, great weather and plenty of drugs oil a sweet little world where all we have to do is wait for Richard to do his business with the French girl.
Then boy fights off shark, loses girl and as well his mind for the Lord Of The Flys/Rambo bit. All ends happily a little later though with a happily reconstituted stars not receiving a heart warming letter but, because this is the noughties, an email.
DiCaprio is a fine leading actor here paying the dues (in his case making millions) as a pin up boy for Hollywood. Director Danny Boyle delighted (disgusted) us with Trainspotting and Shallow Grave before this tripe tripped his C.V.
But hey, I wish I could find a beach like that. Hollywood surely is a place of dreams.