Lifeguard - Not Baywatch

Ex-Surfer and shirtless hunk Rick struggles with whether to continue on doing the thing he's too old for but loves or to not have sex with the 17 year old. See what I did there? Welcome to the Baywatch Prequel.

I mean seriously, this is just Baywatch right or the other way around? The story follows Mitch, I mean Rick, who is now 32 and still a beach bum lifeguard. So he has to make a choice: enter the suit-and-tie world of schmucks or keep on guarding and facing ridicule from society. Along the way, he takes on a new trainee (Parker Stevenson - yup THAT Parker Stevenson) who is attending college in the fall (possibly law school?), gets himself into a school girl crush/statutory rape situation, hooks up with an ex who is way out of his league and loses a lifeguard decathlon because he's getting too old for this shit. All this while sprinkled with various lifeguard activities that will one day become plot lines for entire episodes of Baywatch. 

This kinda sounds like a good time, doesn't it? Well its not. Lifeguard manages to deliver each of its elements with one over-arching characteristic: tedium. If its not Rick you want to slap, its someone else on screen for being near him. Maybe I just have a problem with the Peter Pan plot, but I don't want to get behind any cry-baby who doesn't want to grow up because then it means taking responsibilities for your actions. While Rick waddles from one bad decision to another, his support group just keeps encouraging his bad decision-making. So you find yourself having a real hard time getting behind anyone in the film.

Fortunately, Rick did get his act together and had a lovely child with Wendy, changed his name to Mitch and raised Hobie to be a lifeguard like his old man. It was just a different show and we have David Hasselhoff to thank for fixing this mess.