Return To Paradise? Ouch. That was one harsh movie.
Actually, it was a little heavy-handed for my taste, and I had a few problems with some parts of it. In case you haven't clicked on the link, the synopsis is this: Three young men--Sheriff, Tony and Lewis--meet and have a great time in Malaysia, and they buy and smoke a lot of hashish. Tony and Sheriff (David Conrad and Vince Vaughn) leave, and Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix...who else would I be watching these days?) stays behind for a good cause. However, Sheriff has inadvertantly done something that brings the law to the place they shared, where there is still loads of hashish lying around--enough for them to charge Lewis with dealing the stuff. So years later, Lewis faces the death penalty if neither of the other two come to take their share of the blame. If two of them go, they each get three years and Lewis lives. Only one of them, and that one gets six years. Beth, Lewis's lawyer (Anne Heche,) tries to convince both men to come back and take responsibility.
So you can see, this movie started out with a really interesting premise, and had a lot of potential for interesting character ambiguity. But some of the choices the writers and directors made tended to somehow overshadow this, and in some cases the subplots totally diverted the whole thing.
( SPOILERS AHEAD ) The name of this blog is "Don't Expect Depth," so I'm obliged to add that Joaquin gets extra points for having had long hair for the first few scenes, and long hair works very well on him. Extra points also for having a scar on his lip. Also for being all
like this and whatnot.
...What?! I'm a
girl, damnit. I have
estrogen.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
