Return to Paradise

This well acted, intense drama is worth seeing on two counts:

1) The excellent performances by Lewis (Phoenix) and Beth (Ann Heche)

2) The uncompromising and original plot.

Three young men decide to party in Malaysia, leaving one of them, a Greenpeace activist, behind after two years. He is sentenced to hang for a drug charge; only his two friends who have returned to America can save him.

Not a car chase in sight, but the tension is high. The unexpected, emotion-filled ending is both gratifying and sad. I recommend this film with eight (8) stars.

This movie appeals on many levels... smartly written, with seductive cinematography, strong editing and acting throughout (with forays into brilliant). And, yes, the romantic sub-plot and un-"Hollywood" style ending DO make sense! Read on ...

(NO SPOILERS…)

Return to Paradise, a beautifully written, crafted and acted film is one of the few DVDs in my collection that I just keep coming back to.

The prologue in Malaysia begins during the credits and is worth the watch in itself. It grabs our interest, and establishes the dynamic between these three young men, who are off for a post-college fling before assuming their "real" lives. The music, hand-held camera effects, and MTV-style editing evoke the carelessness of youth, of a young man's idea of "Paradise".

Tony (played by David Conrad) is an opaque, friendly, architect/engineer who is Everyman in his pursuit of honor within the bounds of a satisfying, conventional life. Louis (Joachim Phoenix) – a gentle soul - whose plan is to stay in Southeast Asia and pursue Animal Rights ... and "Sheriff", played by Vince Vaughn - a tough, straight talking hustler from Brooklyn. It is Sheriff's journey that we stay with as the action moves over to America, then back to 'Paradise'.

We discover, along with the characters, what has happened to the friends since their idyll on Penang. When we rejoin Sheriff, it is a few years later. He is driving a limo, and living in a seedy NYC apartment, filled with books. He is on a path that stumbles as he irreverently, but wistfully, reaches for inner growth. We know enough about movies to know that SOMEthing interesting is about to happen to this good-looking guy. By the time the story wraps up, the character of Sheriff will have achieved an impressive depth of self-awareness, subtlety and tenderness that is a credit to the delicacy of Vaughn's acting in this piece.

Louis and, in his stead, Beth (Anne Heche), believe that greater things lie inside of Sheriff. In the prologue, Sheriff, brash and careless, teeters when Louis asks him (with confidence in Sheriff's core of selflessness) to join a fight to save the orangutan. Much later, faced with a corresponding request from the compelling and volubly erotic character that Heche creates, Sheriff uses his affair with Beth as a catalyst to reach for the nobility in his soul.

Things do not turn out as we (or they) expect. Character relationships reshuffle a bit near the end, but rather than being devices to surprise and tweak our emotions, these twists and turns of the plot help ensure that Sheriff's decisions are (as he tells his friend in a poignant jail cell meeting ) his own. Like Tony, Sheriff ultimately makes his choices, not on behalf of his friends ... but for himself.

The best thing about Return to Paradise is that there are no bad guys. A life 'hangs in the balance', but the competing forces are, as in the real world, created by the myriad of individuals all acting out their own interests with no real malice, yet perhaps without the purposeful empathy represented by the Louis character. We are absorbed by the compelling interplay between Beth, Sheriff, Tony, the Malaysian officials and MJ Major (the aggressive reporter played by Jada Pinkett-Smith in an acerbic, pivotal, cameo) all the way through to the final, cathartic, conclusion.

Don't miss this one.

I am not a Fan of Drama/romantic Movies, but This Movie should have been overloaded with awards! smartly written, strong editing and great acting.

Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche are brilliant in their roles especially Anne Heche. I was never a fan of Vince Vaughn, but this was a great performance from Him.

Anne Heche took her character to another level. Joaquin Phoenix performance is very realistic.

One of the strengths of this film are the things in between. Afterwards, you can ask yourself if Beth is an actual Lawyer. Whether the proposal of three years actually has been and not concocted by Beth. And what were the motives of Sheriff. Yet the morally or in love with Beth. The two story lines are beautifully interwoven in each other with surprising twists here and there.

The only down point from this movie is that the director misused Heche by not giving her good camera angles and coverage of her expressive face.

'Return to Paradise' is one of the most underrated films ever. It deserved at least two Oscar nominations. Best actress: Anne Heche, Best supporting actor: Joaquin Phoenix

Even if you do not like this kind of movie, the movie is worth seeing for the performances which unfortunately have pretty much gone unrecognized. Check it out. Score: 9 out of 10

An Americanization of a 1990 French film called "Force Majeure", "Return to Paradise" tells a pretty straightforward story. Three young friends - Sheriff (Vince Vaughn), Tony (David Conrad), and Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix) - meet while vacationing in Malaysia. Lewis stays behind while the other two go home to America. Then, two years later, an attorney, Beth (Anne Heche), seeks out Sheriff and Tony to let them know that Lewis was jailed for possession of hashish (which actually belonged to all three of them). He's now due to be hanged, and Beth implores Sheriff and Tony to return to Malaysia and share in the blame in order to save their friends' life.

"Return to Paradise" isn't always consistently compelling - the romance between Sheriff and Beth doesn't work as well as the rest. But the film is pretty powerful in its best moments, spinning a fairly intelligent yarn about human responsibility, about owning up to ones' decisions and mistakes in life. It also deals with loyalty & friendship, the willingness to do anything to save someones' life, and the inadequacy of an oppressive prison system. It may have its viewers asking themselves the same question: would they be willing to put their lives on hold, and endure a depressing prison sentence, in order to help out a friend? In the case of Sheriff, it furthermore illustrates the idea that some of us do undervalue ourselves and underestimate our own strength of character.

The picture is directed with sensitivity and eloquence by Joseph Ruben, the veteran filmmaker who'd started out in exploitation films of the 1970s and graduated to things like "Dreamscape", "The Stepfather", "Sleeping with the Enemy", and "The Good Son" as his career went on. The performances are superb right down the line, although the Jada Pinkett Smith character, an aggressive reporter, may end up angering some viewers. Vera Farmiga has one of her earlier roles as Tony's concerned fiancee; Raymond J. Barry appears unbilled as Sheriffs' father. Phoenix is a standout as the sensitive, nature-loving do-gooder who wins audience sympathy quickly.

Although some viewers may feel that a climactic revelation a half hour from the end is not necessary, it does help the audience to understand just why a particular character is so determined to save poor Lewis.

A good film that never really did get its due 22 years ago, this is worth rediscovering nowadays.

Seven out of 10.

This film is about moral dilemma – whether or not to give up three, or maybe six, years of life by accepting imprisonment in a Malaysian jail, or continue living in freedom knowing that a friend has died as a result. This point needs to be made up front – it is not a film about the rights or wrongs of Asian judicial or penal systems, nor is it a film about the morality of drug taking.

So we follow the two characters, Sheriff (Vaughn) and Tony (Conrad) who have to make this decision as they go through the decision-making process, prodded in no uncertain manner by their friend's attorney Beth (Heche). This tortuous process is played out against the comparatively comfortable background of their home city, New York. And not only the comforts of home, but also of employment and marriage prospects.

The process is played out a little unevenly although given the nature of the decision perhaps this is not surprising. But where it is flawed is the sudden blossoming of romance between Sheriff and Beth. Prior to this there had been no indication of this turn of events, indeed, quite the opposite as the two had regularly fallen out and appeared to have a mutual dislike for each other. Thus there is a feeling of a contrived piece of plotting which, to make matters worse, goes on to form the basis of the end of the movie.

Whether or not this is an accurate portrayal of the Malaysian judicial and penal systems seems an irrelevance. On a rather pedantic point where was the US embassy (and State Department) to provide support? It simply is not the case that in circumstances such as these that the lead characters would have been left on their own. That's not to say that the outcome would have been any different but it may well have affected some of the decisions individuals took towards the end. It might also have been an opportunity to add a little more reality and edge to the story, especially if the officials took an approach that put US foreign relations above the interests of its own citizens!

This is a movie that makes us think – and no movie that does that can be written off. And the acting, especially from Heche and Phoenix, is fine. But the plot flaws mean it's a good, rather than a great, film.