Boat Trip (2003)
"There are
stereotypes in the film. But I've been on a gay cruise
and Speedo-clad muscle boys are on those ships." -
Scott Seomin, a spokesman for GLAAD
I honest to God do not know whom
"Boat Trip" was made for. This film is 30 year out
of date. It seems to have been made for audiences
who found "La Cage Aux Folles" funny and outrageous
in 1976. Even "The Birdcage," the American remake
from the late 90's, seemed already out of date. "Boat
Trip" is seriously dated. It's actually the directorial
debut of Mort Nathan, a writer (he also co-scripts
here) whose been in the business for over 25 years
working on hip and au current projects like "Benson"
and "The Golden Girls." Maybe that explains it.
The premise of "Boat Trip" may seem
simple, two straight guys mistakenly sign up for a
gay cruise, but the way it's played out here we're
lead to believe that the two guy must be blind idiots.
Cuba Gooding Jr. And Horatio Sans have surely not
"sold their souls to the devil." The devil could get
them better scripts than this. Gooding and Sans fall
flat as hell in the beginning of this film with the
idea of them being oblivious to the fact that it's
a gay cruise, the most moronic plot contrivance I've
ever seen. It's pulled off like an old vaudeville
routine. I'm beginning to believe that Nathan may
be so old as to lived during vaudeville.
And yet, while this film is a total
piece of crap with enough gay stereotypes to, well,
to fill a cruise boat, I found myself laughing at
stuff and rarely being offended. I am ashamed to say
so but it is the honest truth.
There's every sort of reason to
hate it. The characters are ridiculous. There's even
a rip-off of the Hank Azaria character in "Birdcage."
There are drag queens and raging queens and pretty
boys and limp wrists and assless chaps and gimp masks
and leather queens and you name it here and yet never
once is anyone made the butt of the joke (even in
assless chaps). They're just characters that are there.
Sure, Sans and Gooding sometimes look at them with
that sort of odd look that straight people give when
they see a gay pride parade and the drag queens and
leather daddies walk by - but they never say anything
derogatory. In fact, the movie even grinds to a halt
about a third of the way through for Sans to have
a tender moment about acceptance. It's all so damn
innocuous and contrived that it's really hard to get
mad about it.
It can be really hard when you're
a gay person to accept the diversity of your own culture.
We have pride parades and then feel ashamed for some
reason when the drag queens and leather daddies and
oddball characters show their pride. The face of gay
culture is a face that changes from person to person
as much as it does in straight culture. I often get
offended when gay people are portrayed in films as
murderers, gangsters or other types of villains. But
there are no villains here, just this rainbow flavored
lollipop of outlandish gay culture. I love that we
are so odd and diverse. I love that gay people, that
all people, can be whatever they want in this world.
And even if this film has many, many stereotypical
outrageous gay types, it also has normal gay guys.
Sans hooks up with a group of poker players made up
of all gay guys that provides "valid" and normal types
too.
To fault the film for having some
(okay a lot of) stereotypes would be wrong. Stereotypes
become stereotypes because there is some validity
of truth behind them. Besides, it's easier to fault
"Boat Trip" for being stupid. There are just some
ignorant moments in this film. Nathan also wrote "Kingpin,"
so he seems to also have a penchant for absurdism.
Here he inserts a gaggle of big titted women, supposedly
members of a Swedish sunbathing team, who get shipwrecked
in the ocean and are rescued by the gay cruise ship's
captain. Sans, of course, drools and cavorts like
Jackie Gleason on Ecstasy when they arrive. It's downright
stupid. And the one-liners in the film are a mixed
bag as well. Occasionally they can be sharp and witty
but just as of ten they can seem to be written by
Morey Amsterdam or Henny Youngman.
Here's an idea of the humor in the
film: Sans decides to go get breakfast on the first
morning after discovering what kind of cruise he is
on. "How gay can a buffet be?" he asks. Then we cut
to him at the buffet, standing in front of several
huge ice sculptures of cocks, one spurting out water.
Goddamn it, that's fucking funny. Stereotypical and
crude, but fucking funny.
But then again the film also thinks
it's funny to make Roger Moore into a swinging, septuagenarian
cruising homo (it's not) and Lin Shaye (the landlady
from "Kingpin") into a hard-nosed old woman who pretty
much rapes Sans (also not).
"Boat Trip" is about as mixed a
bag as you can get. Bottom line: This isn't for straight
audiences. And it isn't for overly sensitive gay audiences
either. But if you can just kick back, accept the
fact that gay guys come in a rainbow of flavors, and
enjoy the goofy gay jokes, then you can make it through
the film. It also doesn't hurt that, as Roselyn Sanchez
points out in the film, Cuba Gooding, Jr. has a nice
ass.
Now what he needs is a better agent.
Note:
Also with Richard Roundtree, Vivica
A. Fox, Maurice Godin, Ken Campbell, (Farrelly Brothers
alum) Zen Gesner, Artie Lange, Thomas Lennon, and
a cameo by Will Farrell.
Several "gay" anthems are used in
the film including "I Will Survive" and "I'm Coming
Out." (What no "It's Raining Men?")
Filmed in 2001 in Germany, Brazil
and Greece.
Several gay groups protested the
film upon its release.
Viewed in Austin in April 2003.
