Link to the n*de dudes.

For Movie Night this week, we watched The Beach (2000). I don't usually review movies that are more than five years old, but I thought it might be of interest for the beefcake and weird paranormal tease.

In the trailer, Leonardo DiCaprio and his friends are touring Thailand, when they stumble upon a tribe of hippies that hasn't aged since the 1960s. He takes off his shirt, spears fish, and has s*x with about a dozen women. But things go wrong, and he must flee through the jungle at night. Maybe they're planning to sacrifice him to the Elephant God?

The actual movie is not as hetero-sleazy as the trailer suggests. There are only two hetero-s*x scenes, both partially obscured, and shirtless guys far outnumber the lady parts.

I suspect that Leo is supposed to be a sympathetic character, but he comes across as an arrogant, pretentious jerk, who ignores the museums and temples, actually all of Thai culture, to hang out with Westerners and criticize Thailand for being crowded, sleazy, and Westernized.

Left: The Buddhas of Wat Pho.

One night Daffy, the Looney Tune in the room next door, tells him about a beach he found that's pristine, pure, unsullied by Westerners. It's on a secret island -- he draws Leo a map, then dies.

Sounds like Bali Hai from South Pacific, or maybe Shangri-La from Lost Horizon.

Left: Daffy is played by Robert Carlyle, who showed us his stuff in the The Full Monty.

Leo convinces Francoise, the girl who's been flirting with him, and her boyfriend Etienne to join him. 16 hours by train to Surat Thani, then a boat and overcrowded bus to Ko Pha Ngan.

There Leo hangs out with a gay couple (Peter Youngblood Hills, Jerry Swindoll). He invites them to the Island, and gives them a copy of the map.

Left: Jerry Swindoll. Nice chest, buddy.

Peter Youngblood Hills' backside and front are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Turns out that they're actually straight stoners -- they sleep head to foot, and when they finally get around to the Island, they bring girls. But it was nice while it lasted.

More after the break

Next Leo and his friends have to bribe someone with a boat to take them to Mu Ko Ang Thon National Park, where visitors aren't permitted, swim 2 km across shark-infested waters to The Island, cross the marijuana field guarded by a gun-toting drug cartel, and jump off a cliff, whereupon they find a beach that looks like every other beach in the world. Maybe it has regenerative powers.

The colony consists of about 20 hippies, all white except for one black guy, no Asians. They dress in tie-dye t-shirts and love beards (except for Leader Sal, who dresses like a pagan priestess), strum guitars, play volleyball, have bonding rituals, and get high. They claim to be self-sufficient, except every now and then they have to sail over to the nearest Westernized island to exchange marijuana for rice; but when leader Sal goes on a supply run, they request dozens of Westernized items, tins of curry, newspapers, magazines, beauty supplies, tampons, condoms...

The hippie colony shares the Island with the drug cartel next door, which is permitting them to stay but demands that no one else be admitted. So it's not a matter of keeping their magical rejuvenating beach a secret?

Leader Sal is horrified to discover that Leo has a map; he didn't give a copy to anyone else, did he? "Of course not," he lies. Her boyfriend Bugs wants them out, but Keaty (Paterson Joseph, left), maybe looking for new blood after seeing the same faces for 30 years, petitions for them to stay.

Volleyball, spear-fishing, weird rituals, and an affair with Francoise follow. Leo denies that anything is going on, but her boyfriend Etienne figures it out, and steps aside so they can be together. He starts hanging out with Christo in a gay-subtext buddy-bond.

Left: Etienne is played by Guillaume Canet.

Later, Leader Sal demands that Leo accompany her on the supply run. Her boyfriend says that he will cut Leo's balls off if he touches her, but Sal insists, so they have s*x. He denies that anything happened, but Francoise finds out anyway and breaks up with him. You were cheating on your boyfriend with Leo, Lady. Isn't it hypocritical to get upset over a simple hookup?

Things start to go wrong when sharks kill one of the hippies and severely injure Christo. He refuses to go to a hospital on the mainland, and Leader Sal refuses to allow an outside doctor in, so he just lays there, until his screams disrupt the volleyball game and they exile him to die slowly in a tent far from the colony. Etienne stays with his...boyfriend? Buddy?

Then the stoner dudes and their girlfriends show up on the National Park island that used to be 2 km away, but now looks like around 500 feet. Sal orders Leo to keep an eye on them, and if they appear on their Island, destroy their map and send them away.

This causes a complete change of tone, theme, and even color palette, as Leo inexplicably goes Lord of the Flies, running through the jungle at night, sneaking into the drug cartel's headquarters, having hallucinations where he and Daffy the dead guy become mass murderers.

Eventually the stoners arrive in the marijuana field, and are killed. The leader of the drug cartel, upset over the incursion of new people in violation of the agreement, rushes toward the hippie colony with his goons. Leo grabs Francoise, kills Christo so Etienne will leave, and they try to escape. Too late: the drug cartel guy orders the hippies to kill Leo. Sal tries, but the gun isn't loaded. So they all leave.

Months later, Leo is sitting in a cyber-cafe, doing things on a computer, when he gets a photo of the hippie colony from Francoise, a memento of their happy time together. Really?

Beefcake: Lots.

Heterosexism: Leo is all about the grabbing and fondling. There's a lengthy scene of him watching a bikini babe walking out of the ocean in slow motion. Irrelevant to the plot; the director just liked looking at bikini babes.

Paranormal: In the last scene, Sal says that the hippie colony has only been there for six years! The rejuvenating beach and arcane rituals were just teases. This begs the question of why they dressed and acted like 1960s hippies in 1994.

Gay Characters: Maybe Etienne and Christo. During the climactic show-down, Keaty is hugging a crying dude. My partner said that they were "obviously" a gay couple, always together, and asking for 40 condoms in the supply run. I didn't notice.

My Grade: This is actually parts of three different movies with different tones and themes, haphazardly smooshed together so the plot and characterization doesn't make sense. Add to that the paranormal tease, and Leo being an amoral jerk, and the movie becomes a big disappointment (except that I read the very bad reviews). D, except A for the beefcake.