Pretty good, despite all the bad reviews I've read

Rating: 7/10 (4 June 2000)

I went to this one, knowing that it could be crap, but hey, I do not care what others think and once again this way of thinking did not prove me wrong.
This flick is basically about a young twenty who goes away on a trip to Thailand by himself, because he wants to forget his past. There he meets a loony (Robert Carlyle) who gives him a map to a secret paradise. He asks two strangers, Françoise (Virginie Ledoyen who was really great in her first big American Film and good looking too by the way) and Etienne (Guillaume Canet) to come and join them.
After they have found the island they meet an alternative group who lives there and they join them, but after a while problems evolve and a minor 'hell' breaks loose.
This is the plain story-line of the movie, but there is so much more to it, it has a message and that really is what fascinated me a lot in the beginning and at the end. There was a good story there, but the way it was brought over, never really losing the actual message out of sight. Now believe me the direction, the soundtrack and the cast are good. There also is a bit gore, but it fits good in the movie and is not unnecessary.
Yet this film is not flawless, it was good entertainment over all, yes and it was very good in the beginning and in the end, but in the middle when Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) loses it, so does the film and that is a shame. It is just too weird, too long and too incomprehensible (in the sense that the viewer himself doesn't know if it is real or not). It could have been so much better, but I guess it had to be.
NO MUST SEE BUT DEFINATELY WORTH A TRIP TO THE VIDEOSTORE OR TO THE CINEMA AT A DISCOUNT!!!!!!!!
7 out of 10
P.S. Don't agree?????, sue me!!!!!!!!!!! or mail me (see above)