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Return to
Paradise
****
Cinema
Releases - April 16, 1999
Rated on a 4-star
scale. USA. Directed by Joseph Ruben. Written by Bruce Robinson and Wesley
Strick; based upon the film "Force Majeure", directed by Pierre Jolivet,
written by Jolivet and Olivier Schatzky. Starring Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche,
Joaquin Phoenix, David Conrad, Jada Pinkett Smith, Vera
Farmiga.
Great ideas are common; it's their great execution
that's rare. Joseph Ruben's "Return to Paradise" is a film
with the head and heart for both, dealing with complex story and important
issues, unfolding with passion and rhythm.
The film opens with dreamy footage of Malaysia,
as three young American guys live hedonistically on a long vacation. They
are Sheriff (Vince Vaughn), a carefree guy from Brooklyn who got to go abroad
with dodgy frequent flyer miles; Tony (David Conrad), a college boy who hopes
to grab a really wild chapter of memories before he moves on and settles
down; and Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix), a pensive, nature-loving youth who hopes
to travel to Borneo, on a Greenpeace scheme to help rescue endangered
chimpanzees. We catch them in their last few days together, savouring the
atmosphere, the women, the good booze and the cheap hash.
That hash becomes significant. We meet up with
Sheriff and Tony two years later, when a lawyer, Beth (Anne Heche), comes
to visit them in New York. It seems that after they left Malaysia, Lewis
was arrested with the group's drugs, and since it was a helluva lot more
than a few joints' worth, was put in jail for trafficking.
His sentence has just been upgraded to death,
which will certainly be carried out, unless Sheriff and Tony return to Malaysia
to share the blame, in which case the charge can be commuted to possession,
and each man will serve three years. The pair in New York have only eight
days to decide whether to go back, and risk their lives and freedom, or do
nothing, and let their friend hang.
Beth is frank about everything, giving the men
little leeway to shy away from the point or make excuses. As played by Heche,
she's got an intense presence and strong moral core, without being one of
those phoney, pseudo-liberal speechmakers who recite hollow clichés
they picked up as students. As her brutal truths keep boring into the men's
heavy hearts, an amazing amount of tension develops -- not only for Lewis's
life, but for his friends' souls.
The film forces us to ponder what we would do
in their shoes. It is by no means an easy call, and the dilemma is made more
complex by the way this particular situation is set up -- different valid
angles on the problem suggest different solutions, and the characters do
indeed look at most of the conceivable angles.
The structure of this is methodical, but absorbing
and challenging. Layers peel away one by one before our eyes, as the men
confront each different facet with their own personalities, and clear on-screen
captions let us know how much time is left before the execution date. The
plot carries surprises right up until the last, but with no cheap shocks
or selling out, only painful inevitabilities.
"Return to Paradise" is, therefore, not merely
about a moral dilemma, as some reviews have claimed. It's about the whole
situation of foolish westerners on sadistic foreign drugs charges, a situation
that far too many kids find themselves in. In reminding us of that with such
sobriety is where the film's power lies, and although we have the perfect
forum for stunning melodrama, this is usually forgone in favour of realism
-- in mannerisms, conversation structure, and in the order and pacing of
unfolding behaviour. Remarkably, it also finds space to cover the frustrating
issues of press irresponsibility, bureaucratic malice and capital
punishment.
Furthermore, the picture represents a great
progression in the career of director Joseph Ruben, who made the detested
summer-camp movie "Gorp" and the sickening child-killer romp "The Good Son".
"Return to Paradise" is one of the bravest films of the decade in its artistic
ambition and its social commentary, reminding us of how often things like
this occur, and the implications for all involved. When cases like these
were first publicised, such as when Billy Hayes wrote his autobiography,
it was hard to let their horror escape our minds. Now, when even the worst
of them seem common enough to be pushed to the back of our newspapers, here
is a document to encourage our serious thought and care.
COPYRIGHT© 1999 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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