Harmony Korine (Spring Breakers) and Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club, Fools Gold, Magic Mike) instill intoxicating good vibrations for those into going low for a rambunctious strange high.
The Beach Bum has McConaughey’s crisply tan, middle-aged, shaggy-blonde coiffed Moondog out of civilization for a while in his Florida Keys habitat swimming easily in the sun-dappled glory where women and products laced with THC aren’t in short supply.
Moondog’s approach to life is evident underneath those cheesy wraparound sunglasses as distaff audiences may be teased a bit by his carnal expression in egregious bawdy revelry of another ‘dimension.’ The charisma of this miscreant abounds in burnout hedonism and squalor, but it’s hard to believe that Moondog is an acknowledged highbrow stoner of a poet. A stupefying, silly display of turpitude almost coasts for a while on an almost unrecognizable McConaughey’s intuitive way with the provocateur’s churning indecency.
Isla Fisher’s waterfront manse Miami-based Minnie just happens to be Moondog’s wealthy slut of a missus lounging around with a prosperous rapper and weed dealer endowed in natural cool by Snoop Dogg (remembered way back from Baby Boy and also a hipster TV game show host). Stefania LaVie Owen is his about to be his newlywed daughter Heather which begins an alteration of fun pursuit with typewriter in tow when the unconventional, if confused and disconsolate guy needs to produce a follow-up for his hard partying, profane literary agent, filled with inordinate glee by Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street, Get Him To The Greek).
It seems that Korine’s way with material which arguably holds feature length veers a tad much into darker terrain. That’s abetted by Zac Efron’s son of a preacher splurging into rehab egress euphoria with Moondog while Martin Lawrence’s Capt. Wack provides fleeting amusement with an addled parrot as a tour guide into spotting dolphins. The wanton egregiousness of The Beach Bum even with a giggling McConaughey coming a long way from his arrested development suaveness under Richard Linklater is just too depraved and destructive to be the kind of deft, outrageous odyssey from a neon-infused delirium.