Watching "Return To Paradise" was like watching a pitch meeting gone terribly wrong. I could almost hear the writers unveiling the story before a disinterested studio exec...
Writers: "Three guys are on vacation in Malaysia. Two of them go home, the third - some sort of Greenpeace kid sticking around to save the endangered whatever - gets stuck with everyone's hash. One thing leads to another, Greenpeace Guy goes to jail and he's going to be executed for trafficking if the other two don't come back and take responsibility for possession."
Studio Exec (Yawn; Beat): "Does it have to be Malaysia?"
From there, things get ridiculous. Greenpeace Guy's lawyer (Anne Heche) comes to New York and falls in love with her client's most unlikeable, loathsome, arrogant friend (Vince Vaughn). BUT WAIT....
He's not really anyone's friend. He's just some self-serving creep. But that's okay because she's not really anyone's lawyer, she's Greenpeace Guy's SISTER (collective gasp). And she's just using Self-Serving Guy to save her brother, Greenpeace Guy. BUT WAIT...
She's not really using anyone. They're really in love. And Self-Serving Guy isn't going back to Malaysia (Did it have to be Malaysia?) to save Greenpeace Guy. He's going back to show Greenpeace Guy's sister how self-serving he really isn't. BUT WAIT...
There's another guy. Equal parts success and conscience. Everything Self-Serving Guy isn't. By the end, he becomes everything Self-Serving Guy was, but isn't anymore. We're not really sure how this happens, it just does. But it's not really important, because when it's all said and done, he's only there to make Vince Vaughn's character look good after the movie exhausted all of whatever energy it may have had making him look bad. Still with me? I didn't think so.
"Return to Paradise" lacks depth, feeling, direction, conviction, characters, story, cinematography, performances and a decent score. If you want to watch unlikeable characters wandering aimlessly through the greatest crisis of their miserable little lives and then stop on a dime and contradict everything we've come to know about them for the sake of a plot twist, you should enjoy this movie.
If you'd rather see believable characters that you can actually care about in a similar predicament without a lame love story and a couple of bogus sex scenes, go rent "Midnight Express", directed by Alan Parker, written by Oliver Stone. Unlike "Return to Paradise", "Midnight Express" is based on a true story and made by expert filmmakers. They understood their story, their characters, and the reasons for making that film. "Return to Paradise" serves as the 90's counterpart to its infinitely better predecessor, like "Independence Day" to "The Day The Earth Stood Still", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and every other film it ripped off and misunderstood. It's just another sad example of the truly God-awful state of moviemaking in this day and age.
(Zero Stars)
Writers: "Three guys are on vacation in Malaysia. Two of them go home, the third - some sort of Greenpeace kid sticking around to save the endangered whatever - gets stuck with everyone's hash. One thing leads to another, Greenpeace Guy goes to jail and he's going to be executed for trafficking if the other two don't come back and take responsibility for possession."
Studio Exec (Yawn; Beat): "Does it have to be Malaysia?"
From there, things get ridiculous. Greenpeace Guy's lawyer (Anne Heche) comes to New York and falls in love with her client's most unlikeable, loathsome, arrogant friend (Vince Vaughn). BUT WAIT....
He's not really anyone's friend. He's just some self-serving creep. But that's okay because she's not really anyone's lawyer, she's Greenpeace Guy's SISTER (collective gasp). And she's just using Self-Serving Guy to save her brother, Greenpeace Guy. BUT WAIT...
She's not really using anyone. They're really in love. And Self-Serving Guy isn't going back to Malaysia (Did it have to be Malaysia?) to save Greenpeace Guy. He's going back to show Greenpeace Guy's sister how self-serving he really isn't. BUT WAIT...
There's another guy. Equal parts success and conscience. Everything Self-Serving Guy isn't. By the end, he becomes everything Self-Serving Guy was, but isn't anymore. We're not really sure how this happens, it just does. But it's not really important, because when it's all said and done, he's only there to make Vince Vaughn's character look good after the movie exhausted all of whatever energy it may have had making him look bad. Still with me? I didn't think so.
"Return to Paradise" lacks depth, feeling, direction, conviction, characters, story, cinematography, performances and a decent score. If you want to watch unlikeable characters wandering aimlessly through the greatest crisis of their miserable little lives and then stop on a dime and contradict everything we've come to know about them for the sake of a plot twist, you should enjoy this movie.
If you'd rather see believable characters that you can actually care about in a similar predicament without a lame love story and a couple of bogus sex scenes, go rent "Midnight Express", directed by Alan Parker, written by Oliver Stone. Unlike "Return to Paradise", "Midnight Express" is based on a true story and made by expert filmmakers. They understood their story, their characters, and the reasons for making that film. "Return to Paradise" serves as the 90's counterpart to its infinitely better predecessor, like "Independence Day" to "The Day The Earth Stood Still", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and every other film it ripped off and misunderstood. It's just another sad example of the truly God-awful state of moviemaking in this day and age.
(Zero Stars)