The Beach

2.5/5 stars
lionardo dicaprio


identity crisis
the beach is a great movie with an interesting idea that dosent always know how to express it or even if it wants to. it starts out reasonably, with an almost fight club like vib with a deep voiced loner walking around bangkok rebelling against the world. this dosent go on for long as richard(dicaprio) recruits a french couple to follow him to a private island with a great beach and lots of weed. once we get to the island(and it dosent take long) we are quickly introduced to a paradise, a self sufficient community that seems to be the place hippies always describe in their long speeches. although this paradise has a price, a price of denial and at times blood, the film introduces this theme early and brilliantly by placing obscene acts in bright sunny locales. unfortunatly halfway through the movies forgets whats its trying to convey and goes off into a long pointless "lord of the flies" like deviation. at this point the movie throws so much at us(including a donkey kong like video game trip, and multiple refrences to apocaLYPSE NOW)thats its imposssible to figure out what exactly's happening. of course the movie transistions back to a dark ending but is done sloppily so and will have many bewildered. but even if the movie hadnt had a mid life crisis im not sure it would have completely worked, mainly because the film dosent want to admit that decaprio's character is an asshole. the implications are there(hes unfaithful, a liar, and spoiled) but because of decaprio's star power we have to see him as merely misunderstood, instead of a more flawed and believable human character. ultimatly the recipe here is add one great movie, mix with one pretentious movie, and another great movie that had nothing to do with the original recipe and voila instant mediocracy.