I choose the films I review sometimes only out of convenience.
Since I’m monumentally busy, I sometimes miss the ones I should see
and catch the ones I shouldn’t. I usually catch up with the good
ones I miss, but some of the bad films I see actually make me wish
I could have the time back.
I choose the films I review sometimes only out of convenience. Since I’m monumentally busy, I sometimes miss the ones I should see and catch the ones I shouldn’t. I usually catch up with the good ones I miss, but some of the bad films I see actually make me wish I could have the time back.
“Boat Trip” is one of those films, a film that comes along once or twice a year, a film so bad it defies explanation, but I will try. If I gave out star ratings as most critics do, zero stars would be far too high a grade. Let me try to explain.
After “Snow Dogs” last year and now with “Boat Trip,” it seems certain that we have seen that last of the best of our beloved Cuba Gooding Jr., who hit it out of the park with his beautiful performances in “Boyz in the Hood” and “Jerry McGwire,” for which he won an Oscar. Gooding Jr. was in last year’s worst film (“Snow Dogs”), and it will take a truly horrible moviegoing experience for anything to top “Boat Trip” as the year’s worst. It makes Tom Green comedy look like the most sophisticated art ever made.
The story is non-existent, but there is a premise. Felicia (Vivica A. Fox) has had it with Jerry (Gooding Jr.) and dumps him at her first opportunity, which leaves him horribly depressed. Best friend Nick (Horatio Sanz) comes up with the perfect antidote – they’ll go on a cruise, hearing that cruises generally have beautiful, lonely women on board.
Nick and Jerry wear their homophobia on their sleeves and are not shy about making fun of gay men. When Jerry and Nick go to a travel agent to book the love cruise, they offend the gay director, who decides to book them on a ship with only gay men. Of course, this is supposed to leave us howling with laughter, but alas, not.
Upon heading up the boat docks to the ship, the boys are so stupid that they fail to realize that there is only one woman on the ship and the rest of the passengers are men, which should give it away. Once they actually find out after a series of poorly constructed, stereotypical homosexual jokes, they go into a panic, which also is supposed to spur laughter.
Unbelievably, Nick’s time on the ship leads him to the conclusion that he’s gay, and Jerry pretends to be gay, hoping to woo the ship’s director (Roselyn Sanchez) with his plan to eventually tell her he’s straight so they can be together. I think. It’s all too ridiculous to make sense, and Gabriella, one of the most underwritten female characters I’ve ever seen, falls for the whole thing. It’s embarrassing and shockingly unfunny.
The major problem with “Boat Trip” is its uncomfortable blending of comedy and serious drama, which gives the film a wierd vibe. Every other scene, as preceeded by an outrageous gag, is followed by a scene of upmost seriousness, and the film fails to develop a rhythm we can feel.
As far as the representation of homosexuals in the film goes, I would have to say that it’s offensive. Every week on Showtime’s “Queer as Folk” we are treated to a story that celebrates the lives of gays and lesbians living in Pittsburgh. The show is brilliant.
In “Boat Trip,” the gay men have been reduced to stereotypical characatures of what gay men really are. By always making them the butt of the joke, “Boat Trip” shows how rude and crude it actually is.
BOAT TRIP. Directed by Mort Nathan. Written by Mort Nathan and William Bigelow. With Cuba Gooding Jr., Horatio Sanchez, Vivica A. Fox, Roselyn Sanchez, Maurice Godin and Richard Roundtree. Rated R (nudity, sexual content, language, crude humor), 95 minutes. Now playing at Bay Area theaters.
