Private Resort Movie Review

While I have no doubt that Johnny Depp, who made this film before he became a brooding actor's actor, would rather bury this movie completely, I'd wager that even the career-vanished Rob Morrow (who gets top billing here) wishes Private Resort could be scrubbed from his resume.

Morrow's theatrical debut and Depp's second film (after A Nightmare on Elm Street), the boys must have thought a little harmless sex comedy would have been a great way to get their careers jumping, or, at the very least, to ogle a breast or two. Well, the latter was successful, but everything else about this production -- which actually features Hector Elizondo as a criminal lothario -- is so ill-advised that it borders on unwatchable.

There's no plot to speak of: Morrow and Depp are pals at a tropical resort and are trying to get lucky. Along the way they encounter a series of obstacles. To get to one heiress you have to go through her doting grandmother and hippie sister. (Grandma ends up drugged.) Another girl, a waitress, isn't supposed to fraternize with the guests. And then there's Elizondo, who winds up taking a machine gun to the resort in this "comedy." Even Andrew Dice Clay appears, and if that's not an obstacle, I don't know what is.

The movie is so unfunny as to be sad and grating. Porky's looks like Citizen Kane in comparison. The film will make you long for the nuance of Bachelor Party and its donkey show.

Director George Bowers never directed another film after this; he wisely went back to editing. But hey, if you want to see how Depp and Morrow got started, now's your chance: 21 years after release, it's finally out on DVD.