An extended cruise ship commercial run through the blender with “Gilligan’s Island” sub-plots and slacker pratfalls. A teenager’s story about treasure hunting that not even a teen-ager could love
The question is not if this film might be watchable by an audience populated by other than teenagers. Rather, it is whether or not there are sufficient teenagers who ask so little of a film as to watch this stinker. Directed by Andy Tennant, who wrote the screenplay along with John Claflin and Daniel Zelman, the film’s pretension is the first thing that comes to mind. Everybody is either rich or soon will be and reflects a level of Disneyland beach boy surfer coolness that is unbearably old after the first ten minutes.
The filming location is the Bahamas and the suggestion is that if you are as cool as the characters in this farce, you would live there, too. Everybody has all they want, all the time, and even the nasty drug-lord / mob bosses are nice enough, once you get to know them. There is something about warm comfort that cures all the bad in the world. What the world needs now is…beach.
The film stars Matthew McConaughey as Ben 'Finn' Finnegan, a treasure hunter who hasn’t found the treasure yet. If you think that is funny, see this film at the earliest opportunity. If you are harboring the slightest picture of Indiana Jones, forget you ever saw that film, or Harrison Ford. If you have seen any re-runs of Gilligan’s Island, think of Ben as sort of a greedy Gilligan in a milieu complete with a rich Thurston Howell III and a dumb but pretty Ginger. Or maybe Jimmy Buffet without the ability to write, sing or remember his name.
Ben is, in fact, a close copy of Owen Wilson in “You, Me and Dupree.” If you liked Wilson in “Dupree,” take that amount of funniness, divide it in half and what remains will be the laughs McConaughey generates in this film. Playing opposite him is Kate Hudson, coincidentally, also Wilson’s co-star of “You, Me and Dupree.”
Hudson has come a long way since her very fortunate appearance as Penny Lane in “Almost Famous” in 2000. Unfortunately, her trajectory has been a downward spiral, due to a lack of decent material. She makes the best of it in this movie and produces the only believable performance of the lot. But if this film is any indication, she has only a few more nails to go before the lid is on the coffin. Tight.
Golden Globe winner Donald Southerland plays a multi-millionaire / billionaire / yacht owner and all around nice guy, even if he is stupid. How his character came to be worth so much without possessing a brain is the kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” flaccidness which fills this movie from start to finish. But the more interesting question is how any actor who has nearly 150 films to his credit could dress up like the Monopoly man (or is it Colonel Sanders?) and play such a pathetic role. For his sake, pray retirement is around the corner.
BIF winner Ray Winstone is absolutely not there as Moe Fitch, the hero’s father figure and competitor in the treasure business. How the producers and director of this film managed to take the best actor on the set and give him the fewest lines is the most interesting point of the entire film. Alexis Dziena as Southerland’s brainless daughter does a good imitation of Miley Cyrus, which might actually sell a few tickets. The Monopoly man and Miley Cyrus do the Bahamas.
Beyond that, the film is a collection of every treasure hunt, surfer, beach blanket bingo and Mickey Mouse club plot rehash that could be imagined. Simply stated, there is nothing in this film but over-commercialized cruise ship photography and sales slogans thinly disguised as a story. An over-long beer commercial framed inside glimpses of bourgeoisie destination wet-dreams.
Release: February 8, 2008
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