Movie: Baywatch
Direction: Seth Gordon
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyanka Chopra, Alexandra Daddario, David Hasselhoff
Music: Christopher Lennertz
Cinematographer: Eric Steelberg
Editor: Peter S Elliot
Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama
Rating: ∗½
What is it about: It’s an action comedy based on the stupendous television series of the same name. How a bunch of life guards cracks a case of the stray drugs on the bay forms the crux of the story directed by Seth Gordon.
Why it’s disappointing: The television series was a great hit for numerous reasons. And till date it’s one of the landmark series across the globe. When a studio like Paramount sets on to make a film on such a biggie, we expect it to have some flavour for entertainment. Unfortunately it falls flat with stale screenplay, which makes you wonder what the direction team was really up to when they sat down to write this one.
Seth Gordon, took few of the best talents from the industry and wasted almost hours of the entire world’s time by luring them with fancy cut trailers, which brought the audiences to the cinema halls. The pace is so lazy that you get a feeling of watching a boring TV series on big screen.
And this film had a great buzz on Priyanka Chopra playing the villain. It was one of the worst in her career and she went all the way to Hollywood to earn that. She looked pretty lost and there was nothing appealing neither her acting chops nor her looks, she looked the worst in that film. Even though she had a generous amount of screen space, she doesn’t leave an impact on the audience.
And with the Indian version of censor cuts, it was all the more annoying which kept jumping guns here and there. Wonder why it’s rated “A” and have been asked to chop the scenes.
What to watch out for: There were very few things which you can say might be good in the film. Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron manage to crack some funny bones but that is not consistent. Alexandra Daddario and Kelly Rohrbach somewhat fulfill the need of the Baywatch for the fans of the series.
The cinematography by Eric Steelberg was quite edgy, but it was edited at a lazy pace by Peter Elliot.
Verdict: Seth Gordon, not only butchered the age old series but have buried a wonderful cast deep down in to the sand. Definitely you can give it a miss and pop in that DVD of “Baywatch” series to get over this film.
