Slow motion rock bottom

In US's pursuit of happiness, 2 events will have negative impact -Trump's Paris pact move, Baywatch

While the US president thinks global warming is a Chinese conspiracy, the director of the Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron and Priyanka Chopra-starrer Baywatch thinks Brooklyn Nine-Nine and 22 Jump Street (not 21)-style cops on lifeguard duty are the epitome of humour. Well, it could have been, if not for Gordon’s creative inputs.

Unlike the original concept, Baywatch, the movie, captures nothing about life on a beach. The elite of the elite, the Baywatch team, led by Mitch Buchannon, played by Johnson, is obsessed with lifeguard pursuits (one of the few jokes that barely float). It is an unbecoming tale of good triumphs evil where comedy is the tragedy.

As soon as you settle down in your seats, our dearest Hollywood-bound desi girl is introduced as the vicious Victoria Leeds, a drug dealer and a real-estate monger disguised as a club owner. But alas the Indian stereotype. Her evil motives stem from scars of sexism. In a one dialogue back story, her parents have given away the family business to her brother, and she has come to America, the land of opportunities, to prove a point. And Mitch senses her evil vibe. So, the sucker-for-rules Captain America in red swim suit often abandons his post and leads his team on drug busts to expose her.

The thing about novice cops taking on mafia is the unfathomable task. They find their strengths as they clash with merciless gangsters and triumph in a most unexpected climax. But Lieutenant Buchannon and his team of lifeguards need no such luck to take on Leeds’ empire, which uncharacteristically rests on the shoulders of just two muscle men — the sidekicks don’t even get a proper introduction. Chopra fails to showcase her acting prowess because she’s caught between being a sinister mob boss and a villain of no consequence. Her character carries no comic punches that humour or evil monologues that can be quoted. Perhaps, the Exotic-fame, Quantico protagonist should have waited for a real Hollywood script.

Talking about wasted talent, Zac Efron as Matt Brody and Alexandra Daddario as Summer Quinn had sparks of laughable silly, but the script is far from ludicrous. While Summer is proactive, and is up for any task as a new recruit, Brody is a defamed swimming champion, a bad team player, who is yet to learn the great lessons of life from Mitch. But that never happens. Johnson and Efron’s on-screen chemistry could have sailed the lifeboat, but their characters are bogged down by slapstick sneak-peaks, which only tickle in parts. A scene, where the two-time Olympic gold medallist, Brody, who’s usually broke and wasted, relents to his failures and pleads Mitch for another chance, suffers from bipolar scripting. It’s neither funny nor intense, and long pauses add to the viewer’s misery. But Jon Bass as nerdy Ronnie, who is deep down and under in love with CJ Parker, played by Kelly Rohrbach, gets it right. His modest screen-time gets a fair treatment and he outshines with his uncontrollable anxiety and comic timing.

The movie desperately attempts to finds its umbilical cord with the original series that has the record of being one of the most watched American dramas. With untimely shots of slow-motion beach runs, they didn’t even get the cliche right. So much so that David Hasselhoff (the original Mitch) was cast in the movie as Johnson’s mentor. He comes in a few scenes to impart wisdom on his successor in a waste of legacy. Pamela Anderson (the original CJ Parker) has a guest appearance in the last scene to conclude the script that, perhaps, ends with ellipses.

It is a shame that uncut scenes at the end of credits were funnier than the rest of the film. The iconic red swimsuits should hang in the museum as national treasure before they are worn again in Baywatch 2.