BAYWATCH

Funny but not as good as the original show

My girlfriend and I went to see Baywatch over the weekend. We knew what it would be about but we didn’t know what the story of the film would be. When I was 10 to 12 years of age, Baywatch the programme was broadcast on television every Saturday evening. It was a young boy’s dream – gorgeous, blonde women running along a beach in revealing swimsuits. The catchy theme song also made it exciting and memorable. Those days, people my age would talk all about it the following Monday when we were in school again. So this film had a lot to live up to in order to match my memories of the show.

Unfortunately it didn’t. Nevertheless, it was amusing in its own way.

The plot

There are a few stories in the film:

  • life on the beach and regular life guard duties,
  • the hostility between Mitch, the head life guard, and a new recruit, Matt Brody, who thinks he is all that and a bag of chips,
  • the recruitment competition for new life guards,
  • the funny, minor story of the awkward new recruit Ronnie Greenbaum who is chubby and unattractive and who fancies the hot female life guard, C J Parker,
  • the murders of three people in the bay and the smuggling of hard drugs which are washing up on the beach,
  • figuring out who is responsible for the drugs and murders and solving the mystery.

All of these make for lots of drama, funny scenes, tension, explosive danger and action.

The cast is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as main life guard, Mitch Buchanan.

Zac Efron plays hot shot pretty boy Matt Brody.

The sultry Priyanka Chopra plays the evil bitch Victoria Leeds. She is excellent in this role.

Alexandria Daddario is life guard Summer Quinn.

Kelly Rohrback is hot life guard C J Parker.

Jon Bass plays awkward, chubby new recruit Ronnie Greenbaum.

Ilfanesh Hadera plays the role of experienced life guard, Stephanie Holden.

The funny parts

The film is mainly a comedy so there are many funny parts in the film. The main funny parts are:

  1. When the chubby new recruit, Ronnie, has a boner and gets his dick stuck between planks of wood on a sunbathing chair. He can’t move and he has to be assisted by C J Parker, the hot life guard that caused his erection in the first place. In the end a crowd gathers around to see the whole delicate procedure and they have a great old giggle looking at him stuck in the wood.
  2. The funniest part of the film is when Mitch and Matt Brody go to a morgue to look at the corpse of one of the murder victims. They want to discover the cause of death. While examining the body, Mitch tells Brody to lift up the scrotum and look under it to see if there were any cuts or pin pricks. Brody, unsurprisingly, is VERY reluctant to go anyway near another man’s sack, particularly a dead man’s sack. He goes looking for gloves and is nearly sick from having to handle the genitalia. The surprising thing about this is that the film actually showed the male genitalia close up in such detail. Normally mainstream films do not show the male genitalia. There was no reluctance to show a cock and balls for a few minutes. The point of it all is that Mitch is actually only kidding about the need for Brody to examine under the scrotum and really he just wanted to take a few photographs of Brody with his face beside a penis and scrotum to put on Facebook! It is very funny.
  3. There is another funny moment when Mitch and Brody are trying to disguise themselves in a beach resort kitchen. They have to find outfits so that they can blend in. Mitch finds a kitchen chef’s outfit – white shirt, trousers, apron and paper hat. Whereas Brody comes out of a room dressed in drag! He has a hat, a wig, a dress, high heels, makeup, etc. The whole shebang! It is unbelievable but it is very funny when he emerges dressed like that.

There are many funny dialogues and scenes in the film such as at the big party in the beach resort or when Summer Quinn and Brody talk about him looking at her boobs.

In terms of the look and feel of the movie, the actors and actresses look hot in their outfits and dresses on the beach and in the parties. It makes you long to be there.

There is a touching part towards the end of the film where Brody is stuck in a cage underwater and he is drowning. He is imagining being kissed by the Summer, the female body guard he likes. In the end, it turns out that it is Mitch that saves him, kisses him by giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation and rescues him.

The not so good parts

I am not a prude but there was a bit too much cursing and swearing in the dialogues. I curse myself so it is not something that enrages me but I found that the constant use of fuck in the dialogues took away from the film. It is meant to be a nice comedy set on a beach, not a violent, criminal thriller. Sure, people curse on the beach but the dialogue sometimes jarred with the vibe and setting.

The plot was a bit thin sometimes. The life guards on the beach became detectives. Normally they would be looking out for people in trouble in the water rather than looking for drugs being smuggled onshore. The main character, Mitch, loses his job and becomes a phone shop sales assistant in the space of a few minutes. It seems a bit too quick and unbelievable.

The ending is a bit too unbelievable. There is a huge firework display and Mitch uses one of the rockets to blast the bitch Victoria Leeds to smithereens. Dramatic yes, believable, not really. Maybe I am being harsh but it could be a bit more realistic.

The cameo roles by David Hasselhoff, the original Mitch Buchanan, were a bit lame. They could have been a bit stronger or funnier. It is a pity that Pamela Anderson could not have

been in it a bit more other than the short cameo she makes at the end of the film. She looks stunning as ever.

The verdict

It is a comedy. It is funny in many parts – particularly the examination of the scrotum in the morgue – but it is also a bit vulgar when it does not need to be. It is not a gangsta movie set in a ghetto or a war film where lots of swearing and cursing would be expected. The story is a bit thin in parts. Really it is a cop thriller dressed up as a beach story film. The life guards are less focused on problems in the ocean and on the beach than being detectives and solving murders and figuring out who is bringing drugs into the area.

It scores points for nice looking actors and actresses, for having funny scenes and for some of the jet-ski scenes on the ocean. It loses points for the thinness of the plot (it is just a thinly-disguised detective film) and on the frequent cursing which made it a bit too vulgar when it didn’t need to be.

If you want a giggle, go see it.

Baywatch, beach, California, comedy, David Hasselhoff, Dwayne Johnson, film, ocean, Pamela Anderson, The Rock, Zac Efron

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