Review of The Beach Bum (2019) by Mnba — 31 Mar 2019

Do yourselves a favor, skip this movie and go get the book “Mile Marker Zero : The Moveable Feast of Key West” by William McKeen, and read that instead.

Huge Buffett fan, love McConaughey, Snoop, Fisher, Efron, all good. Love Key West / Caribbean vibe/culture, benders, good times, all that. All that goodness was wasted on this movie. Ideas that pretend to be founded on some Hunter S. Thompson building block of substance that we never actually see, and then funneled into scenes of what 8th graders might think is cool, is more or less what’s going on here. McConaughey played the Moondog role to perfection, unfortunately the whole project was such entitled teenager attitude idealism that I was embarrassed for the entire cast by midway thru. I guess I didn’t realize that the writer/director was a corny 15-yr-old that recently discovered weed and is currently throwing a tantrum cuz his pampering mother is reluctant to take him to get that giant pot leaf tattoo on his back that he really really wants.

McConaughey made a few spots feel like there might be something, and the character could have been interesting under better circumstances, but then “Hey man” reckless stupidity won out.

I felt bored and strung out by the end. And despite the last ditch effort at some philosophical take away, the real Moondog is sh**ting on himself in a tent in LA, and nobody's cheering him on.

And the token square punching bag, why bother??

Some nice scenery though.