Sand (2000) Reviews

• Hard family invade sleepy beach village

  andertonmark2001-10-03

  The ONLY reason I bothered with this at all is because of Kari Wuhrer, who is one of the sexiest women in the movies today. Unfortunately despite the bad language, drugs, violence and low budget effort of the film, it was so low budget they could not even afford for her to have partial nudity... Dennis Leary is actually the films strongest character, and delivers his lines with the same larconic smirking as in everything else he has been in. The story is generated in the post Pulp Fiction era, but lacks any of the character building, or intelligent script writing of a Tarantino. For all that, it is a good "pass the time" film for an insomniac sometime after midnight. There is a gradual escalation of hostilities between the beach bums and the hard nosed family, with Tyler caught in the middle. There are reflections of male bull headed behaviour, together with laddish immaturity, as well as camaraderie and pride. All in all, it is a film that paints every bad aspect of 20th century man into one film.

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• Sand-Scripts on the Seashore

  sol12182004-07-16

  ****SPOILERS**** The Briggs family coming together for the first time in over 20 years to attend the funeral and have the will of the mother Marina, Kayle Martin, read is a very uneasy experience for Tyler, Michael Vartan. Having been abandoned by his father Gus, Marshall Bell, when he was an infant Tyler grew up only with his mother Marina and felt no real ties to Gus or his two step-brothers Barker & Hardy,Rodney Eastman & John Hawkes. Who were not only beer guzzling coke heads but also very ill-mannered and an embarrassment to him every time he was with them. Tyler also wasn't too fond of Gus's good friend and travel companion "Boston" Teddy, Denis Leary. Who's obsession with the Kennedy clan of Hyannis-Port MA. as well as John F. Kennedy's sexual exploits, in and out of the White House that even at times got to Gus. Marina left her son Tyler everything that she had but Tyler in a show of good faith only took the White 1972 Ford LTD and a photo album and left everything else, the house and $6,000.00, to his father Gus. Tyler then took off for the coast to where Marina was born and raised to get away from the "Family" and have some very needed peace and quite. Striking up a friendship with Jack, Norman Reedus, and his friends Max Andy & Trip, Bodhi Elfman Powers Simmons & Emilio Estevez, a bunch of local beach boys Tyler got to stay at the Higgins home on the beach as a handyman. It there that he met and fell in love with Jack's sister Sandy, Kari Wuhrer, who just came home for the summer from school. Life was good for Tyler with a sweet and loving girlfriend and new set of friends a job and a place to live until one morning "They" came to town, Gus Teddy Baker & Hardy, and everything went downhill after that. Drinking beer and hard booze as well as smoking pot and snorting coke the quartet, mostly Baker & Hardy, made life miserable not only for Tyler but everyone else in town. The brothers finding Sandy alone in the Higgins house, where Tyler was living in, tried to rape her only to be stopped by Gus & Teddy. When Sandy's brother Jack found out that those who tried to rape his sister were Tyler's step-brothers Baker & Hardy he and some of his friends went to the motel where they stayed with Gus & Teddy. Finding them drunk and stoned on coke Jack worked them over leaving them black and blue and out cold. This led to Baker and Hardy the next day attacking Jack who was alone on the beach and just when they were about to kill him they got the stuffings knocked out them by Jack's friend Trip with his homemade baseball bat. Planing to get even with Jack for what happened to them on the beach, for some reason they weren't interested or couldn't find Trip, Baker & Hardy kidnapped and tortured Jack's friend Max. Jack and his friend Andy tried to come to his rescue only to be kidnapped themselves by the brothers and forced to walk the plank on the pier by the Pacific Ocean. Jack & Andy turned the tables on the duo by fighting them off and having all four of them fall down into the water. Baker & Hardy being drunk and on drugs and also not knowing how to swim drowned. The brothers father angered at what happened to them goes out, against Teddy's advice, looking for Jack only to have Jack show up outside his motel room, with Sandy trying to stop him, and rubbed it in about what happened to Gus' sons! Which was really stupid as well as dangerous on Jack's part. Gus chasing both Jack and Sandy down to the beach and hitting Jack with a bullet from his gun in the leg is then finally tackled by Tyler who puts some sense into his head. Telling Gus that killing Jack won't bring Baker & Hardy back but only destroy his life as well. Interesting little movie that tries to make a point and does about life love hate revenge and finally acceptance. The film will never make the IMDb top 250 but at the same time "Sand" will never make the IMDb bottom 100 either.

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• Tripe. Crap. Pile-o-garbage. - 2 of 10

  deadsenator2002-02-18

  I'll give it a two for Denis Leary. He had some good lines, but that's it. What was the point? Where was the script? Who was supposed to act? A movie needs more than this one has to offer. Save the hour and a half to watch your hair grow, or fall out, whatever the case.

• Here's to Sand.

  btu9702018-10-27

  Here's to Sand, probably the greatest American stoner beach bum movie in the history on stoner frickin' beach bum movies. Panned by the user frickin' reviewers, it's a simple little story you probably wouldn't look twice at, except that Matt Palmieri went out on a limb and chocked it full of vibrant characters. That's class, that's frickin' class. So here's to Matt Palmieri, OK? for pulling together a bunch of frickin' tight little performances. From Jack Hawkes to Jon Lovitz to Harry Dean Frickin' Stanton, huh? And here's to all the other performances, from the bar scene, to the restaurant scene, to the beach scene and to that other bar scene and to Norman Reedus as the best frickin' brother of Kari Wuhrer, the best sister you could ever frickin' want, and to Emilio Estevez for swingin' by just when you need him. And to Denis Leary, pal, for probably the greatest frickin' Kennedy tribute of all time. And here's to the whole frickin' rest of the cast, the ones who partied on the beach, the ones who got stoned in the hot tub, and the ones who chanted on the dock, I love them all and I loved the movie, huh? It's got a bunch of great frickin' performances by a bunch of brilliant frickin' actors and maybe it's flat and it's flawed, but it's my kind of frickin' movie and I loved it, OK? How's that? Frickin' Sand, huh?

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• Ugghh. No. Don't bother.

  jimmyd19752002-01-27

  Normally I don't review movies I stopped watching halfway through, but this one is an exception because I watched it in fastforward til the end. I'll say this: Good casting all around, wonderful visual shots of the beach, cliffs, etc. But that's all this movie has to offer. Dull, dull, dull. C'mon scriptwriter, doesn't Tyler have a second memory of his mother?? Why put us through the same shots over and over again?? Do you wanna know why I rented this movie? Because Michael Vartan (Never Been Kissed) was on the cover, and that guy is HOT!! But c'mon Mike, if you're gonna star in a low budget drama/action film and do your usual puppy dog/ smoldering hunk-o-man thing you always do, could you at least have taken off your shirt, even once?? If you're going to do a boring, poorly written beach film, then at least give your female/gay male fans a reason to want to see it. And Mr. Screenwriter, if you're gonna have a good cast working your material, give them something to work with. I mean really. The first half was so DULL I stopped caring altogether. This was a movie where the lead guy was a Montgomery Clift protagonist/ good guy because that's who he is without explanation, and the bad guys are bad just because. It's like the movie was filmed without a script and the director said, "Okay, actors. Be yourselves, and ACTION!" Michael Vartan stood around with nothing to say, looking longingly into the distance, the redneck brothers slugged each other and playfought because that's what rednecks are supposed to do, and Denis Leary tried to say his lines real fast so as to make himself sound witty. The director needed to challenge his actors and the script needed to challenge the production. Routine with stock performances from good actors from better films, this moviegoer gives this film a big fat F. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.....

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