Return to Paradise

USA 1998

Reviewed by Jamie Graham

Synopsis

Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.

College graduates Sheriff, Tony and Lewis are enjoying the final days of their five-week holiday in Penang, Malaysia. They crash a hired bike and throw it over a cliff. Later Sheriff and Tony leave their hashish supplies with Lewis, who has decided to stay longer.

Two years later cab driver Sheriff and engineer Tony are working in New York. Their lives are disrupted by Beth, a lawyer who informs them that Lewis has spent the last two years in a Malaysian jail and is going to be executed in eight days' time; the police, investigating the missing bike, found the hashish and charged Lewis with trafficking. His only hope is for Sheriff or Tony to come forward and admit that some of the stash was theirs, although they may be jailed as well as a result. Tony says he will return to Malaysia, but only if the reluctant Sheriff agrees as well. Sheriff eventually gives in to Beth's pressure, not least because they have become lovers.

In Malaysia, Beth lets it slip that she is Lewis' older sister. Tony reacts by flying back to New York, but Sheriff stays. After hearing Sheriff's confession, the prosecutors agree to lessen the charges against Lewis, but news arrives of a vehement anti-Malaysian article in an American newspaper. The enraged judge sentences Lewis to death immediately. Beth assures the now-imprisoned Sheriff that he will be released in six months and promises to wait for him.

Review

A crisis-of-conscience drama in which two friends must decide whether to sacrifice several years of their own lives to save that of a third, Return to Paradise (based on Pierre Jolivet's Force Majeure) is, as Hollywood product currently goes, a relatively gritty affair. At its best, it has that raw quality so often associated with 70s films such as Mean Streets. Particularly impressive is the opening montage of camcorder footage - which follows the trio through five colourful Malaysian weeks - and the brutal conclusion. But the harsher, more effective sequences are diluted by a steady stream of Hollywood clichés and ersatz sentiment. One suspects many of the cruder elements were jostled into place when director Joseph Ruben (Money Train, Sleeping with the Enemy), himself no stranger to slick but crass output, engaged the services of Wesley Strick, author and script-doctorer of The Saint and Final Analysis. However, whatever or whoever the cause, the final blend of arty touches, commercial melodrama, savagery and syrup is an unhappy one.

This is never more evident than in the central relationship between Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche, both of whom surmount considerable obstacles to give excellent performances. As two indie actors who have only recently dipped their toes into the mainstream, they would surely be aware that their characters' falling in love - shoehorned in to make the tragedy more palatable - isn't very credible. And yet they manage to invest their relationship with both passion and tenderness. Such chemistry bodes well for their casting as Norman Bates and Marion Crane in Gus Van Sant's upcoming shot-by-shot remake of Psycho.

Vaughn has the added millstone of having to hold our attention as he slowly evolves from cold-hearted loner to saintly saviour, a man willing to go to jail to salvage a friend's life. It's an all-important transmutation that the film-makers' signpost every step of the way. When his Sheriff informs Heche's Beth that, "I don't have that kind of stuff in me," it is patently obvious that he'll find it soon, for the sake of the drama if nothing else. Hence when Lewis hugs Sheriff and tells him, "I knew you'd come back... even if you didn't [know it]," one can't help but nod in jaded agreement.

Even the shock ending - abruptly introduced, and reinforced by stark natural light - is softened somewhat by at least two slyly placed omens which fortell it. There is Sheriff's early warning to Tony that, "just because you do something good doesn't mean there'll be a happy ending", and a sub-plot involving Jada Pinkett Smith as a journalist who wants to break the story early and shame the Malaysian government into releasing Lewis, a clumsy device present only to manipulate the plot's final, horrifying twist. Such cumbersome tactics are sprinkled throughout Return to Paradise, their combined weight preventing the film from becoming the hard-hitting moral drama it clearly wants to be.

Credits

Producers
Alain Bernheim
Steve Golin
Screenplay
Wesley Strick
Bruce Robinson
Director of Photography
Reynaldo Villalobos
Editors
Andrew Mondshein
Craig McKay
Production Designer
Bill Groom
Music
Mark Mancina
©PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Inc
©Propaganda Films
Production Companies
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment presents
a Propaganda Films production in association with Tetragram
Executive Producers
David Arnold
Ezra Swerdlow
Executive in Charge of Production
Tim Clawson
Production Supervisors
Joel Hatch
Asia Crew:
Scott Koenig
Hong Kong:
Allen Wan
Production Co-ordinators
Deirdre M. Cook
Hong Kong:
Venus Cheuk
Thailand:
Suvimon Ptcharayuporn
Production Managers
Hong Kong:
Chu Chung-On
Thailand:
Penny Kanjanapinchote
Unit Production Manager
Ezra Swerdlow
Hong Kong Unit Manager
Thomas Leung
Location Managers
Evelyn Pinezich
Hong Kong:
Peter Chu
Thailand:
Thhongterd Mahasuwan
Post Supervisor
Propaganda Films:
Glenn Kiser
Post-production Supervisor
Linda Rae Shamest
Assistant Directors
Michael E. Steele
Julie A. Bloom
Louis Guerra
Hong Kong:
O.J. Tang
Thailand:
Apichart Chusakul
Tippawan Mamance
Script Supervisor
Corey Yugler
Casting
Associate:
Eric R. Zuckerman
Additional Voice:
David Kramer
Hong Kong Co-ordinator:
Chris Chan
Camera Operators
David T. Knox
Bruce MacCallum
Hong Kong:
Stanley Hung
Digital Matte Paintings
Matte World Digital
Visual Effects Supervisor:
Craig Barron
Visual Effects Producer:
Krystyna Demkowicz
Chief Digital Matte Artist:
Chris Evans
Digital Composite Supervisor:
Paul Rivera
Effects Photography:
Patrick Loungway
Effects Editorial:
Ken Rogerson
Special Effects Co-ordinator
Steve Kirshoff
Sign Artist
Thailand:
Kriskorn Pasutanavin
Thailand Letterer
Paisal Ariyasophon
Art Directors
Dennis Bradford
Hong Kong:
Rosa Pang
Thailand:
Arin Pinijorarat
Set Decorators
Betsy Klompus
Hong Kong:
Ken Chiu
Thailand:
Cholwika Koomkaew
Storyboard Artist
Karl Shefelman
Costume Designer
Juliet Polcsa
Wardrobe Supervisors
Elizabeth Feldbauer
Elizabeth Gulczynski
Hong Kong:
Alice Lee
Trachai Prisana
Thailand:
Prisana Traichai
Key Make-up Artist
Katherine Bihr
Key Hairstylist
Francesca Paris
Title Design
Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc
Titles/Opticals
Cineric Inc
Musicians
Solo Flute/Ethnic Woodwinds:
Fred Selden
French Horn Soloist:
Ron Applegate
Oboe/English Horn Soloist:
Jon Clarke
Orchestrations
David Metzger
Mark Mancina
Music Supervisor
Frankie Pine
Score Producer
Christopher Ward
Music Production Co-ordinator
Robb Boyd
Music Editor
Thomas Drescher
Music Recording Engineer
Joseph Magee
Soundtrack
"Jing Jing (Firefly)" by Shoukichi Kina, Tito Kawachi, performed by Shoukichi Kina; "Beautiful Lady" by Ken Woon Liew, performed by Equal; "The Courtship" by Benny Carter, performed by Kenny Barron, Ray Drummond, Ben Riley; "Sonata in F Minor" by Domenico Scarlatti; "Midnight on Sunset" by/performed by Alan Mirikitani
Sound Mixer
William Sarokin
Re-recording Mixer
Reilly Steele
Additional Re-recording
Dominick Tavella
Supervising Sound Editor
Stan Bochner
Dialogue Editors
Kevin Lee
Branka Mrkic
Sound Effects Editor
Richard Q. King
ADR
New York Recordist:
Bobby Johanson
New York Mixer:
David Boulton
Los Angeles Mixer:
Jackson Schwartz
Editor:
Jane McCulley
Foley
Artists:
Brian Vancho
Ryan Collison
Mixer:
George Lara
Editor:
Pam DeMetruis
Stunt Co-ordinators
Jack Gill
Peter Bucossi
Cast
Vince Vaughn
Sheriff
Anne Heche
Beth
Joaquin Phoenix
Lewis
David Conrad
Tony
Jada Pinkett Smith
M.J. Major
Vera Farmiga
Kerrie
Nick Sandow
Ravitch
Ming Lee
Mr Chandran
Joel De La Fuente
Mr Doramin
Richard Chang
prosecutor
James Michael McCauley
famous divorce lawyer
Brettanya Friese
young woman in limo
Deanna Yusoff
woman in bar
David Zayas
construction foreman
Amy Wong
ticket agent

Is Issariya
Malaysian woman in hammock
Ed Hodson
features editor
Kevin Scullin
Glenn Patrick
doormen
Yusmal Ghazali
Aril Izani
Kwak Wai
scruffy guys
Curzon Dobell
client
Vincent Patrick
tavern waiter
Elizabeth Rodriguez
Gaby
Teoh Kah Yong
Chief Justice
Rebecca Saifer
hotel waitress
Rebecca Boyd
restaurant hostess
Woon-Kin Chin
guard
Regina Wu
bailiff
Greg Baglia
Claudia Besso
Blanca Camacho
Gilbert Cruz
Patricia R. Floyd
David Kramer
Robert Lunney
Rae C. Wright
Richard Chang
Fatimah Hashim
Adriene Hashimi
Ikmail Ismail
David Lee
Chan Lim
Haris Mohomed
Mary O'Shaughnessy
Nurul Huda Rahim
Dolly Unithan
Simpson Wong
additional voices
Certificate
15
Distributor
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
10,041 feet
111 minutes 34 seconds
Dolby digital
In Colour
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011