Randal Kleiser, absolute king of the
Attack-of-the-Stupid-White-People genre ("Blue Lagoon," "Summer
Lovers") does it again with the sensitive and moving story of a
young Arizona boy who dreams of a career as a professional surfer
if only his mother won't hold him back and force him to use his
college scholarship instead. Result: Invasion of the Tow Heads.
he kid heads for Highwaya, where he goes through the typical
surfer's initiation--trampled by topless dancers in the Hubba
Hubba Club, chased by machete-carrying Highwayan Indian-lookin
guys, taught to "Duck Dive" without getting arrested, and, worst
of all, getting his beach bag stolen with ALL HIS STUFF IN IT.
His stuff, it turns out, was ripped off by the Hooey. (Whooey?)
The Hooey are these Highwayan Meskin surfer gorilla boys, and
they HATE Tow Heads. The kid is about to get wiped out by Vince,
the Highwayan Meskin gorilla high sheriff, for kissin his sister
Chianti without a tourist's license, when he's saved by some
friendly spiritual laidback surfboard manufacturers who teach him
everything he needs to know to enter the BIG CONTEST where he'll
be judge on three things: number of waves, length of ride, and
"radicalness." No breasts. One pint blood. At least 25 minutes of
brain-damaging surfing footage. Six excellent wipeouts. Luau
without Don Ho. Gratuitous Highwayan music video. Gratuitous
sugar-cane fire. Gratuitous trick-or-treating. Gratuitous pig
farmer. Topless Fu. Reef Fu. Hula Fu. With Gerry Lopez as Vince
the gang surfer who wears, like, really BLACK swim trunks ("Maybe
you go home, yeah, you don't belong over here"), Laird Hamilton
as the surfer who wears stupid body paint and gets mad a lot
("The nose is too thick on this board--you still have a single-
fin mentality--it's very sixties, it's an old man's board"), Matt
Adler as the kid with the pink surfboard, John Philbin as the
sufboard-sander Turtle ("I can tell you're a pretty lame surfer
by the way you wear your shorts"), Nia Peeples as the foxy
Chianti who rides a horse on the beach and teaches Rick the
ancient Highwayan stick-of-grass cure for reef rash, and Gregory
Harrison as Chandler the spiritual surfboard manufacturer who
knows all 700 Highwayan words for "wave" and who says stuff like
"The PURE surfer goes with the wave, he KNOWS the wave" and
"Lance Burkhart surfs for all the wrong reasons." 
|