Director : Scott Rubin
With : Vince Vaughn, Joaquin Phoenix, Anne Heche

Three new friends spend the summer bopping around Malaysia meeting exotic women, living on the beach in primitive huts and smoking hash. The dream trip. At the end of the summer two of the friends return to the New York, Sheriff (Vince Vaughn) to ultimately drive a limo and Tony (David Conrad) to put his Harvard architecture degree to use, while the third- Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix) stays to help free orangutans. After the trip the three fall immediately out of touch until two years later when an attractive lawyer (Anne Heche) shows up to give Tony and Sheriff an offer that’s difficult to refuse.

It turns out that the day the three had split Lewis had been thrown in prison for possession of the large quantity of hash (a trafficking quantity) that the three had purchased for no other reason than because you couldn’t even buy a smaller quantity. Now Lewis is set to hang for the crime in 8 days unless his cohorts return to Penang to share the guilt.

Although the plot may sound a bit melodramatic, there is something both Hollywood and not about this film. It neatly tows the line between predictability and real non-commercial risk. But what ultimately makes this film is the uniformly fine acting delivered by the Vaughn, Phoenix, Heche and Conrad. With the exception of Phoenix, who plays both the liberal do-gooder and the tortured prisoner superbly, most of these characters seem merely surface sketches of Gen-x stereotypes but played so accurately you can’t help enjoying them as much more than the caricatures that they are.

It’s been quite a while since we have seen a real “endure the test of time” star emerge. We’re near the end of Newman/Redford era, Harrison Ford is getting a bit on as well, as is Mel Gibson etc. Enter Vince Vaughn the hulking star of recent indie greats “Swingers” and “Locusts.” He’s got both the looks and natural nonchalance of Newman, circa “Cool Hand Luke,” mixed with the cocky swagger of James Dean. If Vince Vaughn is ever going to break, this is the role that will break him. To go through an entire summer without a decent Hollywood film would be – well … par for the course I guess, but it would also be really sad. This is a solid movie, but one that probably won’t be marketed shrewdly enough.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 1998 at 2:06 pm and is filed under movies + dvds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.