DIRECTOR: Seth Gordon CAST: Dwayne
Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, David Hasselhoff SCREENPLAY BY:
Damian Shannon, Mark Swift STORY BY: Jay Scherick, David Ronn, Thomas
Lennon, Robert Ben Garant BASED ON: Baywatch by Michael Berk, Douglas Schwartz,
Gregory J. Bonann PRODUCERS: Ivan Reitman, Michael Berk, Douglas Schwartz, Gregory J.
Bonann, Beau Flynn EDITOR: Peter Elliot
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Eric Steelberg MUSIC: Christopher
Lennertz GENRE: Action, Comedy, Drama
PRODUCTON COMPANIES: Paramount
Pictures, Contrafilm, The Montecito Picture Company, Vinson Pictures, Seven
Bucks Productions, Flynn Company, Cold Spring Pictures DISTRIBUTORS: Paramount Pictures COUNTRY: USA LANGUAGE:
English RUNNING TIME: 116 minutes
Technical assessment: 3
Moral assessment: 3
CINEMA rating: V18
MTRCB rating: R16
Lt. Mitch Buchanan (Dwayne Johnson)
leads a team of lifeguards composed of Stephanie Holden (Ilfenes Hadora) and CJ
Parker (Kelly Rohrbach) at the
Emerald Bay. Mitch is well regarded by the bay community because of his track
record on life rescues. In one of his routine patrols in the bay he finds a
pouch of prohibited drugs washed up near the Huntley Club owned by big time businesswoman
Victoria Leeds (Priyandka Chopra).
Suspecting something fishy going on at the Club, he sets to investigate its
activities, involving his team of lifeguards plus trainees—surfer Summer
(Alexandria Daddario), nerd Ronnie (John Bss), and Matt Brody (Zac Efron, a disgraced
Olympic swimmer and gold medalist). Brody
initially comes on arrogant, his ego puffed up by his Olympian celebrity status,
but with Mitch’s tough mentoring, he learns to work with the team. The full team works to gather evidence of
Leeds’ illegal drug operations but the syndicate, the bay management, and the
police give them a hard time.
Baywatch has a good cast telling a good story but excessive
reference to sexual inhibitions of a nerd character and exposure of male
genitals of a dead body to elicit laughter is rather distracting. Exchange of jokes in vulgar language somehow
overshadows meaningful dialogue on Baywatch duties. Nonetheless, the film offers good
cinematography in some of the long shots of the bay, underwater and rescue
scenes, with compliments of good editing. The rescue scenes (especially
the one with the boat on fire) actually give viewers a ringside view of
lifeguarding, and graphically tells them the job is not just about “protecting
people from sunburn”. The production
design, costumes and make-up are appropriate either at the beach or in high-end
social functions. The musical score gives an overall upbeat tone to the film.
Inspired by the famous American
TV series of same title, Baywatch focuses
on the interaction between Mitch and Brody—mentor and trainee—and the latter’s
maturing through failures until he finds meaning and purpose in his work. All
work duties especially as a team leader require dedication, hard work and
accountability. This is how the character of Mitch is portrayed in the film. He does not tolerate arrogance among his team
mates and he makes them realize the importance of good attitudes and
self-discipline to be able to succeed in a lifeguard job where precious life is
always at stake. The film also depicts that no matter how far a person has
reached a celebrity status there comes a time that his humility may be
challenged to face life’s realities, just like the character of Brody, the
disgraced Olympian. When there is misunderstanding between two people with a wide
age gap, the older shows firmness and maturity in injecting right attitude and
values. However, the movie
is peppered with shots of women’s breasts, butts, men’s sex organ, and
expressions of sexual desires with vulgar language. Did Baywatch
intentionally use sexual humor and situations to get the younger audience to
sit up and listen to Mitch’s wisdom and sound values? For instance, we see the dead-man-in-the-morgue
footage as a test of Brody’s sincerity to serve seriously as a lifeguard, and
we hope that the audience who laughed over this scene saw its value as we did. Maybe yes, maybe no, thus, CINEMA gives it a
V18 rating—for older teens and adults who are assumed to be more discerning
viewers.
