Amazon.com: Leonardo DiCaprio sought to distance himself from the purity of his character in Titanic, and his role in The Beach is in many ways a polar opposite. As Richard, a young American seeking to "suck in the experience" of freestyle travel in Thailand, he's a chronic liar, a pot-smoking hedonist, an amoral lover, and ultimately an unstable snake in a doomed Garden of Eden. This crazy descent might be expected from the filmmakers of Trainspotting, but The Beach is a movie without a rudder, venturing into fascinating territory, promising a stimulating adventure, and then careening out of control.
After receiving a not-so-secret map to a secluded island from a stoned-out loony (Robert Carlyle, full of dark portent and spittle), Richard sets out to find the hidden paradise with a young French couple (Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet). What they find is a tropical commune existing in delicate balance with Thai pot farmers, and before long--as always--there's trouble in paradise. There's trouble in the movie, too, as DiCaprio is reduced to histrionics when the plot turns into a muddled mix of Lord of the Flies and Apocalypse Now, with shark attacks tossed in for shallow tension. Director Danny Boyle attempts perfunctory romance and a few audacious moves (notably DiCaprio's vision of life as a violent video game), but what's the point? Tilda Swinton registers strongly as the commune's charismatic leader, but her character--and the entire film--remains largely undeveloped, and pretty scenery is no guarantee of a laudable film. --Jeff Shannon
A Tidal Wave Would be a Blessing This flick has all the appeal of a dead cod in the July sun. No call for a synopsis, just opinion.
I can't understand how DiCaprio could have consented to work in this ghastly, draggy, ultimately meaningless vehicle. Must have had a boat payment due at the time.
Having seen him in "This Boy's Life" (and no, it's no mistake I laud that film, rather than "Titanic", I am cognizant of the rare genius he displays when working with a good script.
With this piece of tripe, he didn't stand a chance. Likewise Robert Carlyle, another very excellent actor. Castaways in a puddle of crap.
Definitely a disc to send off to the recyclers.
the horror, the horror Near the end, I seriously started to wonder if it was supposed to be a spoof of "Apocalypse Now." A pretentiously bad film full of adolescent images and concepts. The acting is not great. Di Caprio's role becomes embarrassing. I suspect he didn't realize just what he'd gotten himself into while they filmed it. As you can see from the other reviews, the premise of Di Caprio's character had potential and a lot of appeal, but the story went completely lame, fast. This film is juvenile fiction that took itself SO seriously. Too bad it wasn't a spoof. Leonardo Di Caprio doing Martin Sheen. That's a pretty funny idea. Yes, it was.
High diving, Dreams and Demons in the Land Beyond In Danny Boyle's masterpiece, the young wanderer finds that the Community he once found so enthralling and unique survives as artifact even if not as a tangible, living entity in itself.
The Beach is a classic road film. instead of shoe-leather (as in The Wizard of Oz), horses, bikes (Easy Rider), trains or cars, the mode of travel for the fellow travelers is paddle boat, high-diving (jumping) and swimming in the lovely wilderness of Thailand. With apparent homage to the classic fairy tale Hansel and Gretel (Grimm), The young people are greeted, upon reaching an expansive field of marijuana, by farmers whose livilihoods are at stake and who are not in a good mood to see the new tourists; strangely, Richard himself, after living in the idyllic commune for some time, abhors the sight of civilization on the shopping trip to the mainland.
Be that as it may, he has learned--vis-a-vis the seemingly endless list of shopping requests from fellow communards, that the city is sometimes a necessary evil. The pristine Thai wonderland community that Richard (Leonardo diCaprio) and French fellow travelers Françoise (Virginie LeDoyen) and Etienne (Guillaume Canet) discover is flawed by misguided, increasingly dehumanized leadership in the form of Sal (impeccably portrayed by Tilda Swinton). Sal's confrontation with the farmers is strong; one begins to witness the absurdity of boundaries and nearly mourn for lost, wasted possibilities for sharing the world and its resources. Yet we also sympathize on some level with those who were here first and cannot help but wonder at the growers' plight as well as that of the young "tourists."
There are echoes of Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1978), as Richard begins to go somewhat insane after Sal orders him to "turn back" the new arrivals--young people, Europeans and Americans like themselves, on an adventure hunt with the copied map left by Richard.
Richard becomes a leader himself after these experiences on the beach, but the genius of director Danny Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge (the same incredible team that created Trainspotting) conveys the notion that true heroism sometimes involves the opposite of leaping bravely into the unknown. Françoise's photograph survives, and becomes artifact.
It passes into the historical consciousness of the film's heroes. In the final analysis, the Community is neither all evil nor a flawless paradise. It is, rather, a human experience that at moment of Richard's life is met bravely and with idealism, savored, confronted, left behind and finally, cherished. Note: The film includes an incredibly astute cameo performance by Robert Carlyle (of Trainspotting fame).
Shark 1 - Sweden 0 I really liked The Beach. The concept of travel abroad without reservation is highly appealing. The thought of finding a remote island all to myself is that much more exciting and enticing. There are, however, a few things with which I have problems.
Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an American backpacker in Thailand living a laissez faire existence. He just wants to have fun without the worries of every day life; he wants to explore and enjoy all that there is to offer. In other words, he likes tourism but abhors tourists. Even though he did make it to Bangkok, he didn't make it to Phucket; so, there's an easy joke missed.
After receiving a map in one of the dirtiest hotel rooms ever, from a completely insane guy named Daffy, he links up with a French couple (Guillaume Canet and Virginie Ledoyen) to find the island. They travel by all sorts of means until they finally see the island in the far off distance and decide to swim for it. I was really hoping for a repeat of the Titanic, where Richard/Jack plummets to the bottom of the ocean, but I was disappointed.
Once the trio inevitably makes it to the island, they meet up with a group of like-minded travelers who have set up an isolated community. They sustain themselves by selling some of the copious amounts of illegal pharmaceuticals growing on the island. The problem with this concept, however, is that there are armed Thai drug dealers on the island. Why would they drug dealers allow the other community? Why not just kill everyone and keep all the profits?
Anyway, the trio fit easily into the island way of life, alongside their new family. Every day is filled with sporting events, leisurely activities, and random upkeep of their little utopia. The only real excitement came from sharks that randomly visited the beach for Swedish hor'dourves. I believe my favorite line of the movie went something like: "AHHHGHRRHRGGRRRAAHHH", when the soundtrack took a 180 into eerieness, as a shark littered the water and beach with bloody shreds of flesh, and then flossed with a femur.
In the end, there end up being too many visitors, the drug dealers have had enough of the outsiders, and the community must decide how far they'll go to protect their secret.
LIFE'S A BEACH AND THEN. . . well . . . There is a genre of film we have dubbed It's-So-Hard-Being (Fill In Pampered Stars Name Here) Cinema, in which an obscenely over-paid actor goes through an existential crisis and finds his life, like, totally shallow, and so divorces himself from all those superficial trappings and returns to what's really important. Think of Anthony Hopkins in It-Stinked -- sorry, INSTINCT, Kevin Spacey in AMERICAN BEAUTY, Winona Ryder in GIRL, INTERRUPTED. The resulting performances are usually difficult to swallow since they come from people who spend more money on Melrose Avenue in half an hour than we make in a month. One of the most ridiculous contributions to this largely insufferable collection is from Leonardo DiCaprio, who got paid twenty million clams to get back to nature.
In THE BEACH, director Danny Boyle's hilariously self-serious travelogue, Leo goes to Thailand in search of himself. He overdoses on "Who am I?" voice-overs in the beginning but never really convinces us he's anything more than a Beverly Hills brat in the midst of an amusingly naive rebellion. Roughing it in a fleabag motel, he meets pothead Robert Carlyle, who gives him a map to an island paradise. Since all this navel-gazing would be incomplete without some French influence, Leo teams up with a gorgeous gamine and her equally photogenic boyfriend to find the mythic paradise.
So, what then is the film once it hits the glorious white sands? Is it ROBINSON CRUSOE? Is it LORD OF THE FLIES? Is it beautifully shot and dumb as a coconut rind? The answers are "Not really," "Hell, no," and "You betcha." On the island, Leo goes shirtless, gets a tan, sleeps with two different women for no apparent reason, kills a shark, yells a lot, imagines himself as a character in a video game and saves the tribe from bloodthirsty drug-dealers. No, it doesn't make a shred of sense, but it sure is pretty. Leo bends over backward trying to be a sexy stud, an action hero and a jungle madman, often in the same scene. Not to diminish his talent, but he's just too darn cute for any of it to be believable.
The mediocre reviews originally given to THE BEACH were much too kind. Thank goodness Leo got back to the real basics; making GOOD movies.
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