A film review by Jeffery Sanders Copyright © 2000 Jeffery Sanders

Usually my friends and I all disagree on movies. Just last week Scream 3 split us up into three groups: the lovers, the haters and the in-betweeners. It is rare that we all agree on a film. The Beach is such a rarity. Of the fifteen or so people I saw this with, almost everybody came to the same consensus: The beginning was great, the middle was good and the ending was …wretched.

In fact, the last act is so wretched it is as if the director simply handed his film over to someone else. Someone untalented. Someone who didn't like the script and wanted to make his own. Someone with no sense of realism or pacing or dramatic effect. I think it might have been the person that directed Wing Commander.

The film starts like a tropical Fight Club with its "this is my life" narration by the lead character Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio, an unknown talent). Richard is a confused youth searching for adventure in Thailand. Unfortunately, the film never fleshes him, or anyone else for that matter, out as a character. We learn he is adventurous because he drinks snake blood just because he was dared too. Richard, despite the efforts of DiCaprio, comes across as just plain confused as his character shifts many times during the movie.

Richard is given a map by a madman named Daffy (Robert Carlyle), who kills himself the morning after telling Richard about a secret island. The island is an indescribable paradise, a place of pure beauty and perfection. Intrigued, Richard decides to follow the map. He invites Francoise (Virginie Ledoyen) a French hottie he is infatuated with, and her unwanted boyfriend Etienne (Guillaume Canet), to come with him to this hidden island.

The actual journey to get to the island is perhaps the best section of the film. In one part, the three travelers find a huge field of Marijuana plants, provoking very impressed "ohhhhs" and "ahhhhhs" from my teenage group of friends.

When the group actually gets to the island they find a larger than expected, but still quite small, community of people just like them: a group of backpackers who have come to the island to live in paradise. The three are welcomed into the community.

My synopsis should probably end there. Since the film has no plot structure at all and contains many plot turns that don't make sense, any further story revelations would be pointless. All I can say is that Leo gets high quite often, has sex quite often, and then inexplicably goes bonkers.

Sometimes it can be intriguing to watch a characters descent into madness, but unfortunately Richards descent is more painful to watch than anything else. Richard does and says things we don't understand. We watch as a cardboard character suddenly does a complete turnaround to become a seriously demented individual. In one scene he becomes a character in a video game (the audience laughed very hard at this, but I doubt that was the filmmakers intentions). When the movie finally ends, we had already had to endure an almost unwatchable forty minutes. A local television station interviewed me on my views of The Beach only seconds after walking out of the theater. Since I had just had to sit through fifty minutes of great film, a half-hour of mediocrity and forty minutes of pure horseshit, I did not have pleasant things to say about the movie.

The main problem, and there are many smaller ones, is that there is no point. I don't know what Alex Garland's (the author who wrote the acclaimed book on which this was based) point was, but I'm sure he had one. The filmmakers behind this movie don't seem to have any idea what the point or theme of their story is.

I am not sure how Danny Boyle (director, Trainspotting, Shallow Grave) did this. I have been a fan of all of his previous films, including the vastly underrated A Life Less Ordinary. This is by far the worst of his movies. He doesn't infuse the movie with much of his trademark visual flair, which could have save it from unpleasantness.

Leo acts adequately for most of the film, but he seems just as confused by the final act as we do so he overacts to the extreme. Almost no other actor is worth mentioning because nobody else has much to do.

The soundtrack is the highlight of the film. Besides an overbearing score during the middle section of the movie, it is wonderful. Techno and electronica is used to great effect in certain scenes.

The film is worth renting on video for several reasons. The first: to admire the breathtaking scenery of these islands. The second: so you can stop the tape about one hour and twenty minutes into the movie. That way you will come away semi-satisfied.

Unfortunately, I came away with only two thirds of a movie which only one third of was very good. Oh Well. I suggest that everyone involved with this movie take a break. They should think about what they did and then maybe, maybe, try again.

	Running Time: 118 Min | Rated: R | US Release: February 11th | More >>

Related Links:

• Official Site
• Footsteps on the Beach
• Star Seeker Movies: Beach
• Salon: Alex Garland Interview
• Upcomingmovies.com: The Beach

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