I'll stand up for it. It's true that the film can be picked apart and left for dead. Chen is not an actress and this is widely known. The story twists are not exactly predictable, yet they have little impact. The "moral" at the end is cheesy.
If you know something about the film business you can read between the lines. Movies like this don't get made much. Greta Scacchi and Joan Chen almost certainly signed on because they believed in the politics and the social mission. Scacchi at least was at a pivotal moment in her career. Hollywood had taken notice and she had some real power. She could have made any movie and she chose this one. When she and Chen attached, the film got financed -- as long as she and Chen agreed to appear nude. The director was probably stuck with Chen and with no other way to get his film made, that's the way it goes in the movie biz.
The budget was probably tight and the shoot was a hassle -- lots of water scenes. Lots of extras to manage. Language barriers. They probably had to shoot fast to avoid running out of money. The editing feels chopped up -- it should be 10-15 minutes longer for real character development. I got the feeling that the cut was taken away from the director and edited for easier sale.
On the positive side:
Turtle Bay's heart is in the right place. It tells a story of Malaysia that I haven't seen and did not know about. The film makes subversive statements about the Australian diplomatic corps. Sure, we've seen it before and much better, but it's not total propaganda as a previous reviewer implied. No one gets away with it on this one.
For this viewer the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This movie was a pleasure. I love watching Scacchi and it's great to see her play in her native accent. Worth it for that alone.
