TraumaWhore's movie review
Sep. 8th, 2003 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
la_belle_laideReturn 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.
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One of the problems I had was the sudden, unexplainable and pointless affair that springs up between Beth and Sheriff. Umm, hello, doesn't he sort of expect her to do, like, anything to save the life of this boy? And he takes up with her anyway? Why they all of a sudden fall in love is just unclear. I don't really think that's the fault of the actors, both of whom were really good. (Anne Heche, dude. She's such a terrific actress, at least in the few things I've seen her in. No exception in this: she's very intense.) It seemed like another example of Hollywood having to throw in a token romance, 'cause, well...just 'cause. :/ It didn't add depth to the characters or the story. In fact, instead of adding another cool layer, it made the story sort of murkier than it had to be.
Then there was the little last minute dealie thing with Beth being Lewis's sister. Yeah, I mean, I can see how that would give one or both of the men an excuse to weasle out of doing their part to save Lewis, and it did serve that purpose in the script, but they could have done that in some other way, without resorting to the old Sudden Immediate Family Tie. ((C) George Lucas, 1980)
I also didn't like the way the ideas were forced down my throat in some instances. It could have done with a little more subtlety. Once in a while I felt like the director or writers were hand-holding me because they thought that I ("I" being the general audience) was too stupid to get the little things on my own. I have that problem with a lot of movies, though.
David Conrad as Tony was actually pretty subtle in his performance, but I tell you, his final decision was plain to me from the start, as was Sheriff's. You just absolutely knew that Sheriff was going to end up being the one who stayed. They set that up in one of the early scenes. Actually, in a few early scenes.
Vince Vaughn<,/a> he's pretty good with the whole moral ambiguity, character arc-y kinda thing. He plays Sheriff very human and faceted...erm, up until he inexplicably falls for Beth.
Joaquiiiiiiin! You are so hard to watch in these harsh movies! ^_~ But for real, though, I mean that in the best possible way. He's hard to watch because one doesn't like to see another person in pain. It's all fun and good when it's fiction, but there's something about his performance (all of them that I've seen, actually,) that always seems not quite fictional; not quite theater; not quite fake. That's a good thing because if a script or director calls for unsettling scenes, then it's up to the actor to unsettle you and make you flinch and cringe and think about what you're seeing, even if you don't really want to. In that, Joaquin succeeds, at least for me.
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.
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.
*
*
One of the problems I had was the sudden, unexplainable and pointless affair that springs up between Beth and Sheriff. Umm, hello, doesn't he sort of expect her to do, like, anything to save the life of this boy? And he takes up with her anyway? Why they all of a sudden fall in love is just unclear. I don't really think that's the fault of the actors, both of whom were really good. (Anne Heche, dude. She's such a terrific actress, at least in the few things I've seen her in. No exception in this: she's very intense.) It seemed like another example of Hollywood having to throw in a token romance, 'cause, well...just 'cause. :/ It didn't add depth to the characters or the story. In fact, instead of adding another cool layer, it made the story sort of murkier than it had to be.
Then there was the little last minute dealie thing with Beth being Lewis's sister. Yeah, I mean, I can see how that would give one or both of the men an excuse to weasle out of doing their part to save Lewis, and it did serve that purpose in the script, but they could have done that in some other way, without resorting to the old Sudden Immediate Family Tie. ((C) George Lucas, 1980)
I also didn't like the way the ideas were forced down my throat in some instances. It could have done with a little more subtlety. Once in a while I felt like the director or writers were hand-holding me because they thought that I ("I" being the general audience) was too stupid to get the little things on my own. I have that problem with a lot of movies, though.
David Conrad as Tony was actually pretty subtle in his performance, but I tell you, his final decision was plain to me from the start, as was Sheriff's. You just absolutely knew that Sheriff was going to end up being the one who stayed. They set that up in one of the early scenes. Actually, in a few early scenes.
Vince Vaughn<,/a> he's pretty good with the whole moral ambiguity, character arc-y kinda thing. He plays Sheriff very human and faceted...erm, up until he inexplicably falls for Beth.
Joaquiiiiiiin! You are so hard to watch in these harsh movies! ^_~ But for real, though, I mean that in the best possible way. He's hard to watch because one doesn't like to see another person in pain. It's all fun and good when it's fiction, but there's something about his performance (all of them that I've seen, actually,) that always seems not quite fictional; not quite theater; not quite fake. That's a good thing because if a script or director calls for unsettling scenes, then it's up to the actor to unsettle you and make you flinch and cringe and think about what you're seeing, even if you don't really want to. In that, Joaquin succeeds, at least for me.
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.
