Sand (2002)

You won't be disappointed!

Too much of everything

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie wasn't actually so bad. A little bit put-up, not some great love story or stupid American action Rambo style, but it was realistic. Well, that's what one brother should do after some ugly nasty scums tried to ape his sister. I expected worse, so this movie is something I don't regret I watched. Norman Reedus played absolutely professional and I have no remarks to his part. Too many talking between the dad and the guy with the black jacket, too many similar scenes, not enough playing by Tylor, who was supposed to be the main character in this movie. Well, I am glad he didn't played much, he was too spineless. But I have to say I think that was a good movie. Much better than The Beanicks, Beat or Dark Harbor. I'd like to watch it again with a better quality and a beer ;)

The film tries hard to be so good and dramatic, unfortunately with the talent in the cast, the script is a let down. Horrible dialog lends to unbelievable characters. The "BAD FAMILY" in the film really isn't that bad, but they are suppose to be. All they do is line after line of coke, but nothing more. The brothers are arguably the worst written bad guys ever on screen. Zero chemistry between them as brothers and of course the script is just such a let down that, they don't come across and crazed, unthinking criminals who don't give a poo about life, rather idiots who have never been to any school, EVER. The only real good character in the film is Norman Reedus who does actually deliver some pretty awful dialog convincingly. Everyone else is flat. Technically, the sound is horrendous, I don't know what they used but whatever it was was not working, the ADR booth used for the beach shots was not a professional place at all. It all sounded fake and far away from the performance. In closing, I understand what the writer director was going for but he failed. The story is suppose to be about a guy trying to escape his past but we are never told what that past was. We get that the family is a bunch of criminals but in what, we are never told. I get that a son wants a better life, so he leaves. He goes to the beach to start a new life, and does. Then randomly his family shows up with a lame story of how they found him. Not believing it. Then of course the rest is just a bunch nonsense of revenge after revenge for nothing that ultimately ends in an anticlimactic finish. I like the overall story, or I should say, what they were trying to accomplish.

I thought the movie story wise had a conceivable plot. It was just executed poorly. I thought Norman Reedus did a great job with what he had but it wasn't much. The character development was bare little to none which didn't leave the actors with much to do. Michael Vartan was not a good lead for this movie. He was very wooden. Also with the little amount of character development it didn't leave you caring about any of the characters including Kari. I have thought about buying this movie so I could rewrite it and give more character development and depth. My favorite scene was actually the scene that involves Reedus and his friends confronting the two brothers after his sister is nearly raped. It was shot well and acted well. Beyond that, everything else was subpar. The movie just had so much potential and it was executed poorly.

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.