Starring: George Clooney, Dedee Pfeiffer, Doug Savant, Gene Simmons    Directed by: H. Gordon Boos

THE STORY:  There's nothing harder about watching some movies than when the characters are so incredibly unlikable that you only want them to die!die!die! in searing pain. It makes it really hard when the characters aren't in a horror movie, because you know the likelihood of a hockey-masked maniac slicing them into wafer thin strips is virtually nil.

The movie centers around Mark Remar, Attila, True Blue, and Doc, a bunch of surfers in California. Remar is the ringleader of the group and he lives with his girlfriend, Rebecca (Dedee Pfeiffer). In order to make ends meet the guys do a little drug dealing for a crazy druglord named Calvera. Now, its not like I've never seen a movie about surfers or drug dealers before...its just that Remar is pretty much an unlikable guy. If you watch the movie you'll note that he doesn't really have any redeeming features to latch onto. And he's played by George Clooney! Clooney has a smug arrogance in his voice and manner I can't get over. So Remar annoyed the [unwrite] out of me. I don't know how old Clooney was when this movie was filmed either, but I think he might have been a year or two too old to be playing a young surfer guy. And if his character was supposed to be anywhere over 25 it only makes his immaturity more infuriating. Remar's buddy Attila,  (Doug Savant) fares better. Where Remar is really a jerk towards his pregnant girlfriend, Rebecca, Attila is at least helpful. (any chances they'll hook up by the end?) True Blue (Philip McKeon) is a loudmouth asshole, and he's met to be one. And rounding off the main characters is Doc, the aging surfer that helps the guys out in their drug dealing enterprises. Doc is played by Gene Simmons...from KISS, not the sissy exercise guy. How old is Simmons anyway? I can't imagine him in KISS makeup after watching him here...he looks like the old Italian guy that ran a deli back home to me. (I kept expecting him to make hoagies)

With Rebecca being the only one in the cast that wasn't a criminal, it was hard to root for them. Rebecca was a pain too. She doesn't approve of the way Remar makes money, but yet she stays with him. He's getting high at the drop of a hat even after she tells him she's pregnant, yet she doesn't leave. Girlfriend, you deserve any grief that you get. Grief comes a' plenty when Calvera, the big evil drug lord finds he has been betrayed. The cops catch True Blue and in offer him a "get of jail free card" if he drops a dime on Calvera. Calvera wants Blue's ass on a platter, but Remar and Attila don't want to let him kill their friend. So they fake Blue's death. Only problem is Calvera finds out about it and comes after all of them.

Now, Attila and Remar had said before that this was their last drug deal...Remar just wants the money so he can move away with Rebecca....and you'd think that would make them sympathetic and maybe heroic when the drug gang comes after them. Actually I was happy as a clam when Remar got whacked. But then Doc, Attila and a few extra's that really didn't have any lines decide to go get revenge on Calvera. This is a strange message....no one was innocent in this movie so why would I care if Doc and Attila get revenge? They're drug dealers! I won't even get into the fact that Calvera's gang is all Latino....I'll leave any subtle racism suspicions to another viewer. I just wanted the movie to be over, even though I don't see how a handful of surfer morons could beat some hardened gun toting drug dealers.

As you can tell I didn't enjoy this movie that much. Most of the character development went towards Remar and he only became more of a jerkwad the longer it went on. I don't know about Clooney. I can't blame him for the abysmal Batman and Robin (he didn't write it), but the Inferno is a harsh audience. We'll have to keep an eye on him in the future. As for Gene Simmons as Doc....which one of those Kiss guys was he? The Cat guy or the Tongue guy?

Best Lines: "That's right five to ten! But who knows...you just may be a [unwrite] and like three pounds of nigger dick up your ass!"- The cops threaten True Blue with serious jail time to make him roll on Calvera.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) The little joke the guys pull at the beginning of this movie perplexes me.....I mean they just destroyed two cars for a prank! Car's ain't cheap! And wouldn't the police track them down from the wreckage? Don't you have to register cars in California?

2.) If I were Remar I'd really have to give this relationship with Calvera some thought. Remar says he doesn't want to be a petty drug dealer forever....well, if its not your lifelong dream you might want to reconsider working for a guy that feeds his underlings to a basement of starving wolves! Anyone that vicious probably has a knack for doing bad things to his associates.

3.) So True Blue was going to leave for Miami without packing a bag or anything? Didn't he own at least another pair of underwear?

4.) Doc and Attila built pyres on surfboards and set their dead aflame letting them drift into the sea....sounds poetic huh? It sure would if this wasn't supposed to be contemporary California! Someone somewhere is going to wonder what happened to Remar. Doesn't he has at least one living relative? And what about the nameless extra that got killed, not to mention True Blue?

5.) I'm so so tired of this ending. You know, where the hero turns his back on the beaten villain, even though there's a weapon within the bad guy's reach. I think this being a whole new millenium, that we should all sign a petition keeping anyone from writing a screenplay where that happens...under the threat of 50 lashes from a cat o' 9 tails.

NUDITY AND SEX:  At a party theres a quick sex scene played for laughs. No nudity is seen.

HUH?:  Lets see...Remar is a jackass, he's a drug dealer and he's really immature. Yet he has a super-babe girlfriend, Rebecca, that is madly in love with him. Go figure.

Somehow I don't quite buy a bunch of surfers beating some hardened drug dealers in a gun fight...or any kind of fight to be honest. (Well maybe a surfing fight) Hilariously, Doc becomes a master of Death Dealing when before he said he was a medic in 'Nam.

How in the name of 20/20 vision can Calvera's chief thug, Bullet, miss Remar with that big honking automatic weapon? It looks like an M-60. He only has to nick Remar with a round to kill him!

The little plan to get rid of True Blue and fool Calvera into thinking he was dead would have worked if Attila and Remar had done the smart thing. Put his ass on a plane and don't leave the airport until you see that baby take off.

THE FINAL JUDGMENT: Hmmm...after rewatching this movie, its official...Clooney kind of sucks in it. Not having seen all of his movies, or even the show ER I won't say he's a bad actor...but in this movie he really got under my skin.