Michael Scott
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How do I describe The Beach Bum? If you enjoy watching Matthew McConaughey stumble around southern Florida in a perpetual haze of booze and drugs while making crude comments to everyone you meet, then you might actually enjoy this movie.
I’m a huge fan of stoner comedy (Harold and Kumar, most of Seth Rogen’s movies etc) but The Beach Bum really should just have been called Florida Man, as it is a hybrid of watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Spring Breakers. A mix that is basically like taking all of the horror stories that you hear about the fringe elements of Florida and infusing it with the cookiness that director Harmony Korine puts in his film. I was a bit nervous about the movie considering Harmony Korine was directing/writing, but I REALLY liked the cast involved, and the trailer looked bizarre as all getout. I mean, we have Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dog (the king of stoners), Martin Lawrence, Zac Efron, Jimmy Buffet, Isla Fisher and countless more adorning the screen. It had to be at least SEMI good! Well, it’s not. I know that there is a sort of “love it or hate it” relationship with Korine, but this is one of his worst movies to date and shows that Spring Breakers was an anomaly for him rather than the norm. The lack of cohesion and sense in this movie is beyond ludicrous and the worst thing is, it’s not even funny. Even if watched high!
Harmony Korine is kind of a strange figure in Hollywood. Back in the 90s Harmony was a sort of likable disaster, making bizarre indie films about poverty, pain, suffering and the human condition. He was kind of like the John Waters of the 90s, and he had a distinct cult following. That is until 2012 when he directed Spring Breakers and it was actually a GOOD movie. Spring Breakers may not be for everyone, but it had a very competent script and was well acted. People started taking notice of him and hailing him as some sort of savant. However, 7 years late he falls back into his old habits of making bizarre films with inept scripts, and The Beach Bum ends up being one of his worst films to date (although it still can’t beat Trash Humpers as his worst train wreck).
I’d say it’s HIGHLY debatable if The Beach Bum has a story associated with it. Korine is listed as both director AND writer, but from what I gathered from interviews and reading around it was a whole lot of Snoop Dog and Matthew McConaughey getting high on set and just making things up as they went along. There’s some basic story structure that McConaughey tries to follow, but even at 95 minutes (including credits) the story is paper thin and stretched to its max. And that includes many of the more inane, nonsensical scenes that really aren’t pushing the story along at ALL. I wanted to like the movie as I’m a huge fan of dumb stoner comedies, but this is really Harmony Korine and just going balls to the walls with as much subversive “newspaper worthy” stuff you hear about from the onion regarding the whacked out stuff that people in Florida do. You know, the old “well, a man was found on the board walks eating another mans face”, or “drunk naked man attacks tourists with samurai swords while speaking swahili” and the reader immediately thinks to himself “I’ll be this happened in Florida”. That’s about the sum of watching The Beach Bum.
Rating:
Rated R for pervasive drug and alcohol use, language throughout, nudity and some strong sexual content
Video:

Audio:

Extras:

Final Score:

There were a FEW funny parts to the film (Martin Lawrence’s coke addicted parrot was actually pretty funny), but the movie is a doldrum of intellectual vacuousness and the jokes just AREN’T very funny. In fact, if the movie wasn’t billed as a comedy I never would have even guessed that it is one. The movie is just a rambling script where Matthew McConaughey stumbles around in a perpetual drug and alcohol induced stupor while leering at people. Rinse and repeat for 90s minutes. The Blu-ray itself is well done in the audio and video department, but the extras are near nonexistent (most good “extras” are actually interviews from Jimmy Kimmel and various other youtube videos and really would have been neat to include on the disc). If you’re REALLY into the bizarre and like Korine’s style, then you might want to check out The Beach Bum, but most other people will just want to skip it, as this is no Spring Breakers.
Technical Specifications:
Starring: Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, Matthew McConaughey, Martin Lawrence, Zac Efron, Jonah Hill, Jimmy Buffett, Stefanie LaVie Owen
Directed by: Harmony Korine
Written by: Harmony Korine
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Universal
Rated: R
Runtime: 95 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: June 18th, 2019
Recommendation: Skip It