Selvaggi (1995)

Bebo, a Milanese plastic surgeon vacationing in Central America aboard his friend Daniela Bellotti’s boat, discovers his supposed girlfriend Elena in bed with a friend. Believing he has been cheated on, he argues with them and is thrown off the boat. Back in Cuba, while waiting at the airport for a flight to Milan, he happens to run into his friend Carlina, a Tuscan photographer, who is with two American models, Cindy and Linda. Along with them, seven other Italian tourists board a Cuban plane: Mario Nardone, a Roman postal worker and committed Communist, with his wife Cinzia; Jimmy, a Venetian holiday entertainer; Felice, an unemployed man from Bari; and Luigi Pinardi, a Neapolitan geography professor, with his sister Marisa. During the flight, the aircraft suddenly suffers an electrical-system failure, and everyone aboard inevitably crashes onto an unknown island in the Caribbean Sea. After the pilot escapes with the passengers’ supplies and the only lifeboat on the plane, the survivors find themselves living through a real-life Robinson Crusoe experience. Using the few remnants of the aircraft, the tourists organize themselves to survive on the island, dividing up the tasks and cooperating—not always very well. Arguments are frequent, especially between Mario and Bebo, because of their differing political ideologies. This leads Nardone to leave the group of castaways with his wife after yet another argument, during which he punches Bebo. On New Year’s Eve, the castaways celebrate with whatever they can manage, largely thanks to Felice, who uses some wires from the plane to rig up a rudimentary sound system, drawing on an earlier stint as an apprentice at an auto-electrician’s shop. Felice and Bebo both try to impress the models, but neither succeeds. Jimmy has better luck: Marisa initially flirts with him, but he later begins a relationship with Carlina. Cinzia rejoins the group after an argument with her husband—she had caught a mullet and he had refused to sell it to the group at an exorbitant price—then drinks champagne and spends the night talking with Professor Luigi. The next morning, Mario is unwell because of a dental abscess, and Cinzia asks Bebo for help. Bebo humiliates his rival by returning the punch he had received a few days earlier—using it as anesthesia and knocking out the aching tooth, thereby solving the problem—and accepts Mario’s apology. The group is united again, but a hurricane sweeps away the few things they own, so the castaways decide to build a raft to brave the sea. Their first attempt, however, ends with them unwittingly returning to the same island. With nothing left, the castaways are forced to live like savages. But one day, while playing golf, Bebo spots nearby the boat belonging to the friends he had argued with some time earlier. After getting a little revenge and taking possession of the boat, he returns to Cuba with his fellow castaways. In the finale, the protagonists meet up again for the journey back to Italy. Luigi has taken along a very talkative parrot named Paul, who does not get along with Marisa. She has taken up smoking joints and found herself a young Cuban boyfriend after her disappointment with Jimmy. Jimmy wants to continue his relationship with Carlina once they are back in Italy, but she treats him coldly, implying that she has a family. Felice has his picture taken with Cindy and Linda, hoping that his adventure in the company of the two beautiful young women will help him find work, while Cinzia is pleased because her days on the island have made her lose weight. At one point, the plane crashes into the sea once again. The final scene shows them aboard an inflatable dinghy, speculating that they may be in the Bermuda Triangle, accompanied by yet another bickering match between Bebo and Nardone.