When Johnny Depp is finished counting his take from the colossal weekend opening of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, will he take a deep breath at his villa in Paris and reflect on how far he’s come since Private Resort? Probably not, but should the urge overtake him to revisit the bad old days in his career, he can always stroll down to the local video store, rent this pre-fame ‘80s T&A comedy, and, I don’t know, down a lot of red wine to wipe away the memories. As these sorta things go, Private Resort is no lost gem – it’s no H.O.T.S. – but it delivers everything you expect from a teenskin flick. Bare bones premise? Depp and Numbers’ Rob Morrow are horny guys at an exclusive Miami hotel, so check. Nude scene within the first five minutes? Check (three minutes, 50 seconds, to be precise). Semi-name actor willing to make a complete fool of himself? Sure thing – here, it’s Hector Elizondo as a thief named the Maestro who’s trying to steal a diamond from a wealthy old lady. Funny stereotypes? There’s a trifecta on hand here, including Japanese guests who love sumo and taking pictures, a severe German barber, and a very big fat girl in a pool (oh, and Depp pretends to be a gay manicurist for a second, so it’s pretty much yahtzee). So you get all this, plus a tough but hot aerobics instructor who beats up Elizondo, a spacey New Age cultist with big boobs (Hilary Shepard, who should be familiar to both the Cinemax faithful and Power Rangers fans), superior celebrity skin from Leslie Easterbrook (Mother Firefly from The Devil’s Rejects), a very hairy Diceman in boxer shorts, lost Carradine brother Michael Bowen (the guy who owns the Pussy Wagon in Kill Bill) as an asshole waiter, lots and lots of accidents involving room service carts, a buffet table of fruit that gets machine-gunned – and holy shit, Lisa London from H.O.T.S.! Oh, and for the ladies, Johnny Depp’s bare ass in a handful of scenes. Just figured you should know.

And yeah, all of this sounds like super fine softcore creamcheese, but you’ve also got to deal with a schlocky romance between Morrow and cute waitress Emily Longstreth (she’s nice on the eyes, but their subplot is boring), and the shenanigans involving Elizondo, an uptight security chief, and the crazy barber get old real fast, and more importantly, eat up time that should be devoted to tease and sleaze. Someone down the production line on Private Resort didn’t believe that they were making a movie that was aimed specifically at retarded teenage boys, and threw in all this other junk for socially redeeming value – I don’t think it was director George Bowers, who made the great My Tutor, among countless other low-budget movies. Whoever it was, he should be ashamed of himself.

Tri-Star’s DVD is the most bare bones production I’ve ever seen – okay, the movie’s in widescreen, but so are most TV shows. And while I didn’t think for a million years that they’d get any of the stars to come back and talk about the hilarious times they had making Private Resort, the disc doesn’t even have a menu page – just a no-frills list of choices, including the option to watch the film with Portuguese subtitles. Tri-Star, honey, there’s no reason to act embarrassed about this movie – we know the reason you released it was to capitalize on Johnny Depp’s popularity. We don’t think less of you, so don’t get all coy with us, huh? Embrace the crap. We do every day, and we’re better people for it.

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- Paul Gaita