This is one of those movies that you just sit back and enjoy. Even if you miss
a little of the story, you can always catch up. It doesn't stress your mind too
much to follow the storyline, and the jokes don't go over your head.
American Bobby McCain is the young heir to his father's company, which is into the business of building resorts. They are planning to build a new beach resort in Australia, and in order to check out the locals and their response to the idea, the highly motivated and ambitious Bobby goes undercover as an exchange lifeguard.
There he finds that the local lifeguard station is on the land they want. The people there are very nice guys, and once they even save him from drowning. He develops a kind of bond with them, and seeing that they don't want to lose the place, he drops his idea of buying the land. Instead, he wholeheartedly helps them in planning to win the lifeguard championships.
Meanwhile, his father's very young wife (not Bobby's mother) and his right hand man plot against him and take over the company. How Bobby, his father and his newfound friends outwit the bad guys forms the rest of the movie.
I liked the movie for its straightforward storyline and direction. It has all the elements of a typical lazy afternoon movie - there's action in the form of lots of surfing and other competitive sports and there's love and romance when Bobby falls for the owner of the land he wants to buy. There's no graphic nudity like the ads promise, but voyeuristic fantasies are satisfied (the movie is shot on the beach, remember?) - and the girls at quite pretty, too! There is plotting and counterplotting, the bad guys eat mud while the good guys win, and all's well that ends well. Elliott Gould's acting as an American feeling out of place in Australia is quite good.
The only detrimental factors to the future of this movie in town are the facts
that the movie itself is an old one and thus the print isn't very good, and that
it is showing in an absolutely crappy theater! On the whole, it's a watchable
movie, but more so on TV!