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Movie Reviews
Women in Prison
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Return to Paradise (1998) |
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| Paradise for Lewis, Tony, and Sheriff: smoking dope on the beach. |
This is a tough review to write, mostly because what we have here is a psychological thriller of sorts, and it is always hard to summarize and describe the way a movie deals with people’s mental states rather than their actions. That said, I’ll try my best.
The story: Three friends (Sheriff, Tony, and Lewis) spend several weeks enjoying the splendors of Malaysia. Sheriff (Vince Vaughn) and Tony (David Conrad) leave to return home. Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix) remains behind and is arrested for possession of drugs... drugs that belonged to all three friends. Now Lewis faces the death penalty... unless his two buddies will return, take part of the blame, and serve 3-6 years in a 3rd world prison. Can you imagine the hard-ons this story must have causes in the pitch meeting? Unfortunately, though this is a great concept, where is the plot?
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| A typically compelling moment: Sheriff returns home to his ratty apartment. |
We’re talking about a great novel, but a movie needs more action. Now, action does not need to be stuff blowing up, of course. Movie action might involve sparkling dialogue between two interesting characters. But as a general rule, internal turmoil is rarely the grist for an interesting movie. I mean, how many scenes can you have of some character staring moodily out into the darkness? Yawn. And yet, that is what this movie is all about, and amazingly it actually works on the whole.
Still, the movie doesn’t take advantage of the most interesting dynamic, the potential jockeying between Tony and Sheriff to see which one will return. Instead, Tony, who is apparently the scion of a major N.Y. developer almost immediately agrees to return, despite his great life and impending wedding to loving but demanding Kerrie (Vera Farminga). Meanwhile, Sheriff is a limo driver, who supplements his meager income by selling out his clients’ secrets to a tabloid journalist... and selling himself out to wealthy women. Oh, and Sheriff also lives in a crappy apartment and has a bad relationship with his dad, who considers him a selfish ne’er do well.
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| Beth and Sheriff converse over beers and smokes. |
Will Sheriff find the internal strength to sacrifice himself for his one-time friend? All the rest is filler. Unfortunately, there is plenty of filler. The catalyst for Sheriff’s internal dialogue is Beth Eastern (Anne Heche), Lewis attorney. Beth alternately pleads, cajoles, bribes, and tries to guilt Sheriff into giving up his freedom for her client’s life. Why is she so desperate if Tony is already on-board? Well, she sort of doubts that Tony will come through in the end... but more than that, if she doesn’t pursue Sheriff tirelessly, we have no movie. So we get endless scenes of Sheriff meeting Beth, Beth meeting Tony, Tony chatting with Sheriff, Kerrie yelling at Beth, Sheriff walking moodily down the street. Beth giving Sheriff a video of Lewis from prison. All of this is all just a way of asking whether Sheriff has the strength of character to go back. Surprisingly, the movie just seems to assume that any decent person would do so. Would you? 3-6 years in a 3rd world prison on behalf of an old whoring buddy you haven’t seen in two years? I don’t know if I would... but then again, I’m a surly misanthrope. Part of Sheriff's guilt comes from the fact that he was sorta responsible for Lewis' drug bust. On their last day in Malaysia, Sheriff trashed a rented bicycle. Lewis wanted to return it to its owner, but Sheriff decides to throw it off a cliff instead. As it turns out, the cops come looking for American bicycle thieves, not drug users. D'oh! I hate when that happens.
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| M.J. argues with a dubious Beth. |
Half-way through, we get another source of tension. M.J. (Jada Pinkett) plays a newspaper reporter who gets wind of the fact that Lewis is about to get the death penalty. She wants to write a story about it, and goes to Beth for a quote. M.J. argues that the publicity will put pressure on the Malaysian government. Beth argues that any publicity will back the Malays into a corner and that they might be forced to execute Lewis regardless of whether Tony and Sheriff return to face the music. This plotline was pretty weak, frankly. M.J. is a caricature – the overly ambitious reporter willing to destroy lives in the interest of a good story. Now, don’t get me wrong, reporters often do despicable things (like pestering the family members of crash victims), but in this case M.J. is almost self-consciously evil. I mean, either she believes that a story will help Lewis, in which case she runs it regardless of Beth’s objections. Or she believes Beth, in which case she kills it. The notion that she would accept Beth’s arguments, and yet still pursue the story, as is the case here, pushes the boundaries of plausibility.
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| Ah yes, the requisite romance... never mind that Sheriff spends most of the movie fighting with Beth. |
Yet another plot twist. Beth and Sheriff fall into bed together. This happens sort of suddenly. Is this still more manipulation on her part? Or has she actually fallen for this low-rent gigolo? Their early scenes as lovers just don’t ring true. We don’t get enough to understand why she might fall for him, but by the same token, he’s portrayed as a bit too savvy to be so easily manipulated if she’s just playing games. It comes across as a requirement from some Hollywood suit insisting that there has to be a love angle before he'll green light the picture.
I’ve been sniping, but actually, I have to give this movie its props. The fact is that when the movie shifts to its climax in Malaysia, I was genuinely involved in the story. I cared about Lewis’ fate, and the movie managed to generate a lot of suspense about what would happen in the end. The concept, in the end, won out, despite mediocre execution. Any time a movie can make you care about the outcome and leave you guessing about how things will get resolved, you have to acknowledge that the movie has done its job.
The finale relies so heavily on several surprise twists that I will modify my usual convention and include an explicit SPOILER ALERT here. If you want to read the rest of the review, scroll down.
I’m serious... SPOILERS to follow....
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| Sheriff and Tony are shocked to hear that Beth is really Lewis' sister... which sort of explains the extremes to which she goes to save him. |
Okay, moving on, Beth manages to convince both Tony and Sheriff to return. Tony largely because he locked himself in early on, and Sheriff largely because of their romance. Upon arriving, they go to visit Lewis in prison. Actually, only Sheriff gets to see him. Lewis is a mess. Basically, the prison and the death sentence have pushed him over the edge of a nervous breakdown. He’s emotional and babbling, and he’s a physical wreck. The prison is very third world -- overcrowded and crumbling -- but Lewis is actually reasonably well treated, albeit underfed. Still, seeing him broken like that raises doubts in Sheriff’s mind. Back in the car later, Tony, who is now on the verge of panic when faced with the reality of impending imprisonment begins to question Sheriff about Lewis. Clearly, the two men are having second thoughts, both because they fear prison, but also because of the idea of making such a sacrifice on behalf of a basket case. Beth, getting annoyed, snaps that Lewis is just fine and that "he’s always been that way." When Tony and Sheriff challenge her on that, pointing out that as his lawyer she’s only known him in prison, she makes a big admission... she’s not actually his lawyer... she’s his older sister!
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| Of course, the blue collar guy returns rather than the rich
fink. |
Well, as you can imagine, this revelation causes some problems. Tony basically freaks out, and uses this as an excuse to back out on admitting his guilt in a Malaysian court. Tony comes across as relieved to have a pretext to renege. This all sort of comes out of the blue, and would have been more convincing if he’d had more doubts earlier. In any case, he lights out for the airport with Sheriff in tow.
The next day in court, the judge calls the proceedings to order. Because neither Sheriff nor Tony are there to accept part of the blame, he has no choice but to reiterate Lewis’ sentence. Just in time, though, Sheriff returns. No Tony though. In the end, we get the typical Hollywood cliché where the blue collar guy has more character than the rich guy. This sort of social statement would be more compelling if it wasn’t being made by a bunch of Ferrari-driving, coke-snorting, overfed movie executives.
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| The press is a convenient villain in a movie that is too squeamish to bash a foreign culture's justice system. |
We’re not done with the plot twists though. Just as the judge is about to imprison Sheriff and commute Lewis’ sentence, there is a disruption. Can you guess? Yup, M.J.’s story hits the wires as the court is in session. It is a scathing attack on Malaysia’s draconian drug laws. It also includes some damning quotes from Beth (the movie is sort of ambiguous about whether and when she actually granted M.J. an interview). Of course, the judge gets his dander up. He rails against the United States and defends his country... and he orders Lewis hanged almost immediately. Sheriff too gets hauled off to prison.
At this point, I was sure -- sure I tell you -- that somehow Lewis’ life would be spared. But shockingly, it isn’t. The very next morning, with Sheriff looking on from his cell, the guards lead Lewis to the scaffold and put a noose around his neck. Lewis is crying and wailing. At the end, Sheriff finally manages to catch his attention, and Lewis get ahold of himself... just in time to die with dignity. Harsh.
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| Lewis dies, but Beth finds love and a cleansing rain shower allow her to make a fresh start with Sheriff. |
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Amazingly, the movie still tries to give us a happy ending. Beth meets Sheriff the next day, and Sheriff gives her his account of Lewis’ final moments. Beth in turn shares the news that after publicity dies down, the Malaysian government will release Sheriff. Both share their love for one another. They kiss through the bars. So, it is sort of a happy ending. Sheriff finds his inner strength and also gets the girl... so what if Lewis had to die in the process? We even get a symbolic thunder storm that cleanses both Sheriff and Beth. Deep. I suspect that in real life both would be too traumatized to embark on a healthy relationship, but whatever.
Return to Paradise is one of those movies that is better than the sum of its parts. The acting is okay, but nothing special. Vaughn in particular is awfully stiff, although Heche is believable on the whole. No one else gets to do much of anything. The characters are a collection of clichés. I should have known that Tony was going to turn out to be a rat the minute I saw his swanky apartment.*note There are long sections where little or nothing happens, and the movie becomes nothing more than a series of meetings and utilitarian conversations. Most of the plot twists seem forced and implausible, and the central relationship (between Beth and Sheriff) is badly developed. And yet, it makes you think, and it makes you care about the characters, and it has genuine suspense. Hard to explain really, but definitely worth a look. At 112 minutes it does not make the mistake of overstaying its welcome either.
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(3.5 out of 5)