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Now, Richard, with his semi-middle-class sound-of-a-different-drummer insights, eyes this as not only potentially a treasure map, but a calling card to steal away the ooh-la-la girl of his dreams. He invites the continental couple to come along on his newly planned escapade and they figure sure, why not, they're out to enjoy themselves and they'll move wherever the wind blows. Soon enough that turns out to be above the potentially shark-infested waters, which the threesome must swim across toward the island. Once on land, they find themselves in flight, jumping from a 120-foot-high waterfall. Before they got this far or jumped in at the deep end, however, Richard had been left to his own devices the evening before on the mainland while the French made love. (What else would they be doing? By the by, despite being French, this couple also enjoys smoking joints. Incroyable, eh?) Richard managed to get smashed during the night with two really cool American dudes (spelled airheads) who apparently don't have a clue about anything they're doing (Cool, man!). In the morning, for some completely incomprehensible reason, he decided to leave a copy of the map behind for these two wankers. Even more incredible, he has the balls to tell us (on the voice-over narrative) that he regrets having done it. Now we know trouble's in store.
Sexual intrigues and violent retribution then become the moving forces for the remainder of the film. Richard even winds up running through the jungle in camouflage looking younger than Tom Berenger and thinner than Marlon Brando, but lacking, no matter how hard he tries, a heart of darkness. In short, this movie is sort of like looking for Shangri-La and winding up on a Lost Horizon. Producer Andrew MacDonald, scriptwriter John Hodges, and director Danny Boyle, who were a strong threesome on their first project "Shallow Grave" and became absolutely irresistible with their strikingly runaway "Trainspotting," have come ashore with the flotsam this time around. Amazingly, Hodges, whose "Trainspotting" had lots of edge, insight and insanity has written a script this time around that loses all effect and credibility as it develops. The plot suffers in starts and jumps. Although the hotel scene at the beginning and the first crossing to the island manage to maintain tension, this is never sustained for longer than a few minutes. The more natural flow of a story line, it would appear, hinders him from devising or developing an exciting or electric visual experience whereas the broken and sporadic form of "Trainspotting" leant itself to spectacular effects. This is the first project for DiCaprio since "Titanic," letting us discover where he washed up. And what is Tilda Swinton (in the role of Sal)" doing here? Surely, she must have had some inkling of what the end result would be like. Exciting and talented in many ways, the woman who once refused Ophelia at the RSC comes off sounding and looking like a cross between a Vanessa Redgrave imitation and someone who might have been better off drowned in her own lagoon and adorned with flowers. All I can say is, if the weather's good, you're probably better off staying on the beach rather than going to "The Beach."
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