Whatever Johnny Depp’s present status (and I think it’s safe to say that current status is ‘Not So Great’), there was a time when he was one of the most respected, beloved actors in all of Hollywood, churning out impressive performance after impressive performance.
Or, at least that’s what we’d like to believe. The truth is, Depp was always spotty. But his highs were very high indeed, and his lows were… minor, in the cosmic scheme of things. For some reason, his misses never dragged him down the way they’d take down other major talents.
For a time, Johnny Depp was teflon.
By odd coincidence (or perhaps something more cosmic), Johnny Depp had major movie releases in 1985, 1990, and 1995. And since I’ll use just about any excuse to pursue an anniversary retrospective, I am proud to present DEPP RISING, a look back at the lesser heralded films that led Depp to the top, and perhaps sowed the seeds of his eventual, ongoing downfall.
And on that note, let us start unceremoniously, with a movie Johnny Depp would just as soon have us forget:
PRIVATE RESORT (1985)
In his defense, it was 1985. Options were limited. If you were a teenage boy, it was either get your throat slit in a slasher flick (which he’d already done; hello Freddy) or submit to the cheesy ignominy of participating in an Afterschool Special.
OR, you ogle girls on a beach for a T&A soaked teen comedy.
Back in the day, those were your only options.
So while it’s surprising now to see Johnny Depp in a movie as deliriously smutty as Private Resort, at the time it was just another paycheck for a hustling young actor on the grind.
And besides just looking like a ridiculously pretty baby, it has to be said that Depp is nothing like a star in the making here. There’s no verve in his portrayal of a horny teen, no sense of anything behind the mask. Depp recites his lines with a lack of flair that might be surprising to longtime fans who expect him to be… you know, good. Or at least interesting.
It’s kind of fun to chart the progress, actually. At first, you can tell he’s just super excited to be on a movie set, surrounded by beautiful babes. And then you sit back and watch as the light slowly goes out of his eyes…
If you need me to explain the plot of Private Resort, then clearly you’ve never watched a movie like Private Resort, and this makes me sad for you. But allow me to indulge your curiosity.
Johnny Depp is Jack, a very horny teen; and Rob Morrow is his slightly less horny friend Ben. They’re two teens on a four day stay at a resort in Florida.
What’s the name of the resort?
What are they vacationing from?
How could they afford to stay at such a posh resort by themselves?
What else can you tell me about our heroes?
To which the answer is, of course: Who are you, Robert McKee? Shut up and look at the foxy girls!
(Good lord, would you look at those hairstyles? Can you even imagine the Aquanet they went through on that set? Truly, there were no fucks given about the Ozone Layer…)
Ben falls for a pretty blonde waitress who is either named Patti or Dana, because who gives a shit, honestly? Meanwhile Jack goes after any girl foolish enough to make eye contact, usually dragging Ben into his half-baked schemes to get laid.
They also get chased around by the head of security Reeves (Tony Azito), who just plain doesn’t like the look of these two hunky teens. Oh, and then there’s Bobbi Sue (Leslie Easterbrook, Callahan from the Police Academy series), one of Jack’s attempted conquests which goes awry. As it happens, Bobbi Sue is married to a thief named The Maestro (an absurdly young Hector Elizondo) who is trying to steal a priceless diamond necklace from the elderly Mrs. Rawlings (Dody Goodman)… and, well you get the general idea.
I don’t remember exactly when I saw Private Resort for the first time, but it was definitely at a point when Depp wasn’t a huge star, but was enough of a name that I found it weird that he was in it.
And it’s still weird. It’s weird just how undynamic he is in the movie. I mean, except for that boyishly beautiful face, he could be any of a thousand skinny dudes that were just kind of… there. He doesn’t lend the shitty dialogue any kind of impish charm or quirk.
I mean, nobody is picking this guy out of a lineup and saying he’s going places…
On the other hand, maybe he was just smart enough not to waste his energy. I mean, it’s not like people were going to be paying attention to him anyway.
They all came for the girls, y’know?
(Sorry, guys… I ran out of hot ones…)
Still, there’s a fascinating connection here to future Depp vehicles. Besides being a potent delivery system for Major Boobage™, Private Resort is basically a farce, a type of comedy that Depp has admitted to a certain fondness for, if no actual aptitude (Lest we forget: Mortdecai was a farce.)
People are running around, being mistaken for other people, slamming doors and hiding in closets. The movie is at its most entertaining during these moments of slapstick silliness, even if it never achieves actual laughs.
And, as with any 80s T&A based teen comedy, it’s at its worst when it tries to convince us that Rob Morrow and whatshername are supposed to be into each other romantically.
Though there’s a bit of a silver lining in that their little subplot gifts us with the single laziest montage song in the history of cinema:
Now if I were to give it just a little more thought, I suppose the rampant sexism inherent in being an 80s T&A based teen comedy could be an 80s T&A based teen comedy at its worst. But as a recovering expert on these sorts of things, it has to be said that Private Resort is pretty low on the offensiveness scale. For one, some of the women actually get to be in on the joke as opposed to mere sex objects. And overall, the antics are relatively tame here; nobody does anything as blatantly terrible as all the shower peeping that went on in “classics” like Porkys and Revenge Of The Nerds.
(Give or take a highly questionable gag involving quualudes that I’d just as soon not get into…)
Honestly, there’s not much more to it than that. In the end, Private Resort is just one of those movies every actor has on their CV; a curio that wouldn’t be of interest to anyone ever if not for their (usually regrettable) participation.
Except this one is kind of fun to watch, because boobs.
In any case, nobody was expecting this to be any more than it was, and it lived down to peoples’ expectations. If Johnny Depp was ever going to become the actor he dreamed of being, first he had to learn what he didn’t want to be.
Thanks to an up-and-coming network called Fox, he was about to learn.
Over and over again, every week for the next five years…
TO BE CONTINUED…