Hot Water

This throwback to '80s T&A comedies is too tame to be a guilty pleasure and too lame to be a decent sports flick.

If, like me, you have a fond recollection of cheesy sex comedies from the 1980s, then “Hot Water” will look pretty familiar to you. Like 1,001 “Caddyshack” imitators, many of them took on a sports theme as a backdrop to loads of naughty jokes, bare skin and juvenile hijinks.

Think of “Hot Dog… The Movie” and the like. What’s interesting about these movies was the enduring power of the stereotypes and formula they embodied.

There’s the scrappy underdog youngster. The older veteran who becomes a teacher/mentor. The surly, snarly villain representing prestige and what the newcomer wants. The Good Hot Girl. The Bad Hot Girl. And, inevitably, the schlubby horndog who chases girls with lame-bordering-on-harrass-y zeal.

It’s all set up to be a classic dunderheaded T&A romp.

Unfortunately, the movie is too tame to be a true guilty pleasure, containing exactly zero T and only a couple of A scenes, both dudes. And the sports part of the story is so 1, 2, 3 formulaic that you can practically count the twists and turns before they happen.

The sport here is jet ski racing, which I’ll confess I did not even know was a thing. The film, written and directed by Larry Rippenkroeger, a veteran stunt performer/coordinator making his debut behind the camera, contains a good showing of race footage complete with big sprays, jumps and collisions. If you’re into that sort of thing, it’s probably the best reason to watch the movie.

There’s a few, a few, good yuks here and there. But they’re too few and far between to justify a 100-minute slog through all the predictable stuff.

Glenn McCuen plays Billy Burnett, a cocky 21-year-old who dreams of being a professional jet skier. He quits his job at a golf club in spectacular fashion, donning a dinosaur suit to do flips in the pool in front of the well-heeled members.

His dad (Michael Papajohn), an advertising exec who’s sick of his kid’s antics, gets his hot sauce client to sponsor a racing team for Billy, with the promise of jet ski legend — jet ski legend? — Jarid Harper (Trevor Donovan) to be the coach. Jarid, who looks exactly like a Beach Edition Ken Doll on Creatine, is a classic burnout, a former champion who got hurt and turned his back on the sport that turned its back on him.

In the middle of this man sandwich is Danny aka “Dog” (Max Adler), who used to be Jarid’s mechanic, mostly as an excuse to drink, party and pester every single woman he encounters. He’s the token blubbery dude amongst all the hardbodies, who find all sorts of reasons not to wear shirts to show off their six-pack abs and vein-y biceps.

Nikki Liegh plays Kelly, the reigning women’s champion and former protege of Jarid. Unfortunately, she’s currently working for his old nemesis, Richard Hurt — Dick Hurt! — the guy who broke Jarid’s leg and knocked him out of the sport. He’s played by Brian Combs, all hard stares and grudges.

Kelly takes a shine to Billy, but since they’re on opposite teams they have to keep it hush-hush. Their go-between is Summer (Stormi Henley), who’s introduced as some kind of jet ski journalist but spends most of her time cavorting in bikinis and putting off advances from Dog.

Things go exactly as you’d expect. Billy’s a hot dog who flames out in his first races, but finally starts listening to Jarid’s Zen-influenced teachings to let the race come to him. Richard puts the hurt on with various sabotages and threats. And it all comes down to the Big Race at the end, with the championship on the line.

The film’s fairly cheap-looking, though the race scenes are pretty decent. There’s lots of raging electric guitar during them, because what else can you do?

Anytime the action turns to land and the characters have to talk to each other, it’s an embarassing mix of hackneyed dialogue and telegraphed reactions. A lot of the background parts are filled by non-professional actors who sound like they’re reading their lines off cue cards.

“Hot Water” is one of those movies that pretends to be raunchy but really isn’t, and wants to be a sports movie but just doesn’t have the horsepower.