8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Falling asleep on the beach, August 20, 2003
This review is from: Sand (DVD)
I came to this movie with low expectations after reading the reviews on this site. Sand is not a great movie, but it's not terrible, as in say, The Sum of All Fears was a terrible movie. I think Sand achieves on the level it was meant to achieve. I suppose it's "real" enough to be boring.
The plot is fairly thin. A young man who looks like an alumnus of Beverly Hills 90210 or Dawson's Creek leaves home after his mother's funeral. From what we learn early on about his dad and half-brothers, it's perfectly understandable wanting to be as far away from them as possible.
He arrives at a small town on the Californian coast where he gets a job and befriends some surfer boys who seem to have nothing better to do than get stoned on the beach. Unfortunately, his family follows him and his idiot brothers attempt to rape his new girlfriend, starting a feud with the surfer boys that spirals out of control.
This movie is definitely a post-Tarantino effort, aspiring to the same mix of "deep" and silly conversations that ordinary people have, as with Kari Wuhrer's conversation with the male lead about "coming home." Sand also boasts an odd assortment of character players a la Tarantino, in the form of Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, Jon Lovitz and Julie Delpy. Denis Leary does his usual Irish gansta bit.
The best things about this movie were the ever hot Kari Wuhrer (even though she's a bit old to be playing a fresh out of college grad) and Kayce Martin as the male lead's mother, seen only in flashback. Kayce reminds me of Jayne Heitmeyer from Earth: Final Conflict.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
What a mess!, April 8, 2002
This review is from: Sand (DVD)
First of all, this film should have been much better than it was. Kari Wuhrer is certainly great eye candy as are Michael Vartan and Norman Reedus, but in this case, their looks do not make up for an unwatchable film.
The story is a decent one, but it warrants a 30 minute treatment not a full length feature treatment. There is so much extraneous non-action that you will want to use your DVD player's fast forward button. The dialogue is not of a high caliber and the delivery is pained. Denis Leary plays a character exactly like.....Denis Leary. He rants and raves as if the director asked him to ad lib for an extended period of time just to use up some film. Poor Michael Vartan. He seems to have realized halfway through that this was a bad career move and just stopped putting forth any effort. Norman Reedus supplies a two-level performance unworthy of his past efforts.
I wanted to like this film. I really did. I love a good thriller. Sadly, this isn't one. It is neither thrilling, nor good.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Rent before you buy, March 19, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Sand (DVD)
If you buy this movie you'll know what I mean.
If your a Kari Wuhrer fan stick to Poison. There's not enough of her to justify this movie.
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