Baywatch

Well most of the 90’s kids or the 80’s kids will have some idea about the TV show Baywatch. Beach, Babes and slow motion were the USP of that show and the new movie Baywatch sort of tries to capitalize on “such” nostalgia without much of content. Now please don’t ask me who the hell looks for content in a movie like this.

Mitch Buchannon leads the team of lifeguards. The three member team is planning to recruit 3 more to the team and they have selected 3 trainees for that slot. Some of the unusual deaths and accidents in the beach happen to be very suspicious and the film is about the private investigation done by this team of lifeguards to find the people who were responsible for those.

The story here is pretty simple and is indeed a big cliché. You have a bad person doing bad things for power and money. Our good heroes are trying to stop that person. Drugs, illegal stuff, yes! The same old thing. Only thing they changed is that this time it is not a bad guy, but it’s a lady. Yes Priyanka Chopra plays the antagonist here and looking at the reputation of the show, it’s a fair enough decision to make a gorgeous woman an antagonist. Apart from that “variety”, nothing is here for you. The kind of dialogue jokes you heard in the promos offer occasional laughs but thanks to our Indian Censor board all those scenes and dialogues have got cut very awkwardly (The slowmo running and the f word are okay but the word boobs is not allowed and the movie is given A certificate – WTF).

I don’t really think the performance here is much of a concern. More than acting, it’s the physique of the actors that has been given prominence. Dwayne Johnson as always plays the hot headed chief. Zac Effron has got a really good body. Alexandra Daddario and Kelly Rohrbach have the kind of body that would perfectly fit something like Baywatch. Jon Bass is there so that they can make fun of nerds. And for Priyanka Chopra, well I can say she has got a lengthier role than what Deepika got in Return of Xander Cage.

Looking at the empty content, I would say director Seth Gordon has created some things out of vacuum. Like I already said the screenplay is quite tacky. A lot of “inspirational” stuff has been squeezed in inside it, but none of it makes an impact. The technical aspects are on the average side and the visual effects were extremely shoddy.

So Baywatch doesn’t really have anything that would stay with you. In India, even the signature things of Baywatch have got chopped of due to stupid censoring rules. Well the makers should have heard Chandler’s suggestion; “Always keep them running. Run Yasmine, run like the wind”.

Rating: 1.5/5