Swept Away (2002)

This is not a good movie, not at all, not even in the Ed Wood kind of way where you love awful scenes because they are so awful. These are not awful enough. Merely dull and familiar and bad and ugh.

You can see, without trying, how it seemed like a good idea to the producers (who are like cash registers, remember). The story has a lot of winning Hollywood factors--a romance that rises against the odds and then faces a dramatic challenge before the final twists. It has a great locale, some nice foreign accents and a pretty boat. It also has Madonna, no small potato, and a potato who is willing to be an unpleasant character (with a buff body). She's a great performer on stage, and here she is trying to go beyond the MTV image. Give her credit.

She does dance, all the same, and she does some swimsuit showing off. But as an actress, she really just doesn't have the stuff, or doesn't here, with this director (the thankfully obscure Guy Ritchie). The other actors are her equal, which doesn't say too much. One exception for me was not Jeanne Tripplehorn, who is dependably able, but Elizabeth Banks as a dull-witted American girl stereotype. Quite convincing...and an obvious foil to Madonna's not-dull-witted type.

And speaking of types, the women are all in neat categories. This isn't a woman's rights movie. Yes, Madonna is strong in an abrasive way. But she becomes a "good" woman only after the man in her life "wins" her over in a the worst possible way. Some people will find this kind of force a way to work things out in a relationship, a wanting to be dominated. But others will see it as rape of one kind or another. This is a turning point in the movie and it's treated with television depth.

And speaking of television, the whole series of scenes and characters might strike some people as glib and shallow in the same way as a lot of better television, the kind of characters that get "developed" in shows like Law and Orders. But on those terms, the movie is entertaining, too, at least in spurts. If there is a missed opportunity in the dreck, it might be a chance to go totally camp. The ending has such stunning clichés, a little push into even greater exaggeration would create total hilarity. Like if the ring flies up and goes "ping" on the helicopter window and she looks--looks where? How? Ah ha! There is hope.

I think.