Sand (2001)

Running away from the twisted violence of his family, Tyler Briggs moves to a secluded beach town where he spent time as a child. As he begins his new life, his brothers show up looking for trouble. They assault his girlfriend, brutalize his friends, and that's just the beginning...

What did i just watch?

I'm sorry. I love Alias and thought "heh! the guy from Alias is in this movie. Maybe it's worth watching." Well, I was most definitely wrong. Why?

-It doesn't make any sense. Why are is the family there? Why are some of the family more stupid and irritating than others (besides the main one)? How the hell did those two guys die?

-The acting in the movie was overall very bad. Maybe a D. The only people saving the movie (hahaha) was Dennis Leary and Michael Vartan. Leary actually had some character and Vartan had character during the first half of the film and in the second half of the film he seemed liked he was making a cameo every ten minutes. He totally diappears in the movie.

-What are with the cameos? Jon Lovitz and Julie Delpy? Yeah, they were useless. Where they intended to be comic relief? Well, they weren't funny. And, he's the best cameo yet. Emilio Estevez who was front dvd case and starring status. He appears for so little of the movie that we dont even know what he is supposed to be. A beach bum? No idea.

-The characters were quite an embarassment. Seriously, the only character with a brain were Wurher (the character, not her acting), Vartan, and Leary.

-There seems to be missing scenes scattered about. How did their couples relationship occur? How did the baddies die? What are they doing in town? Why is this movie so dumb?

-I paid 10 bucks to watch this. Blockbuster owes me 20. double for bothering to watch the movie. May 2, 2004

So, so bad

What a waste of time! Michael Vartan must have been broke when he took this part because it was just such a bad story. And kind of annoying how he kept asking his father and brothers to leave his house and they kept saying "no, we can't do that right now"- ugh! Just kick them out! Call the cops! Then Emilio Estevez, in the movie for about 2 minutes, no idea why. Denis Leary is the only one giving this dead movie mouth to mouth to breathe some kind of life into it, something! Overall awful. October 3, 2003

Falling asleep on the beach

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. August 21, 2003

Hey Michael Vartan is in it.

Michael Vartan is my all time favorite actor but even he could not pull this one out of the bag but I did buy it for his sake. You gotta understand its not his fault. January 18, 2003

What a mess!

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. April 9, 2002

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