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Boat TripSomewhere in this embarrassing comedy is a vaguely credible comment about how gay culture can appear surreal to naive straight eyes. However, Boat Trip relies on the most simplistic shorthand for creating an on-screen gay scene: it's all buff men in chaps, high camp and cabaret, like outtakes from The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert. There's even a moment featuring an emotional queen singing 'I Will Survive' at the piano. Lacking the skill to make the point effectively, the film instead falls back on standard movie messages: ignorance can be easily alleviated; people who fall in love while labouring under an illusion can overcome the lie to live happily ever after.
Six months after his marriage offer is declined by his girlfriend Felicia (Fox), good-natured but depressed goofball Jerry (Gooding Jr) allows his geeky friend Nick (Sanz) to book them on a cruise. The sole purpose is to pry Jerry from his despondency by plying him with easy bimbo sex ("We're not going for the discourse - we're going for the intercourse"). The plan backfires, though - the friends are booked in with the "Socrates Club: Global Travel For The Gay Community". Amazingly, Jerry does meet a straight women, the ship's dance teacher Gabriela (Sanchez), whom he falls for. But she's embittered by experiences with dumb guys.
When Gabriela assumes Jerry is gay, he plays along with it to get closer to her. Meanwhile, Nick is drooling. Get this: he'd accidentally downed a helicopter with a flare gun and the ship had been forced to pick up the "Swedish Suntanning Team". Being Swedish, they're all gagging for it, naturally, so Nick seems in - but he has to get past their fearsome coach (Shaye) first.
Boat Trip is a roll call of lame innuendo, a buffoonish black lead (Gooding Jr), an idiotic, overweight white sidekick (Sanz), a comedy ageing queen (the increasingly leathery Roger Moore, though he can't fail to be adorable) and a slew of scantily clad women for crudely inserted hetero titillation (notably in the form of Swedish Playboy centrefold Victoria Silvstedt). While Gooding Jr is a capable actor, Sanz is another of those 'Saturday Night Live' graduates unfamiliar in the UK whose schtick is simply lacking. His filmography consists of some of the worst comedies to stink up screens these past few years - The New Guy, Tomcats (straight to vid in the UK) and Road Trip. With Boat Trip, another shameful entry slips onto his CV.
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