Based on the 1990 French film, "Force Majeure," and rather reminiscent of "Midnight Express" (the 1978 film loosely based on the true story of an American college student imprisoned in a foreign prison for smuggling drugs), "Return To Paradise" is a thought-provoking, but not always gripping exploration of where one draws the line between friendship and self-preservation. Interesting and compelling, the film ultimately suffers from not having sufficient emotional depth to either make the characters completely believable and sympathetic, or to get the audience completely behind their cause.
The problem stems from several areas where the film fumbles the ball -- so to speak -- while trying to manipulate the audience into caring about the story. Unlike "Midnight Express" that showed the horrors of torture at the hands of a foreign penal code, this film barely shows the prisoner until late in the movie. Instead, it focuses more on the characters grappling with a difficult and potentially life changing -- and saving -- decision.
While that provides for compelling drama in its own right, it hampers the film from truly being as effective as it could be. Since we don't see much of Lewis in prison -- and mainly only get accounts of his condition from his lawyer -- we don't experience the horrors that he's going through. That creates a double-edged problem. Although we care about his plight and worry about the execution by default, we need to see what he's going through, how he's mistreated, and perhaps even see others being executed to make us fully realize what's going to happen.
Without that, the fear factor is lessened, and then also applies to what his two friends may face if they agree to the plan. As it stands, everything is quite abstract. It all sounds bad, but we need to see the horrible conditions and potential punishment to fully sympathize with all of the characters, their decisions, and their possible fates.
Another problem stems from the fact that we don't know these guys very well, and apparently they don't know each other that well either. None have contacted the others for two years since returning, so the "good friend in danger" scenario isn't that effective. The way it plays out, it's as if these guys briefly met while in Malaysia, had some good times, but could care less about contacting -- let alone seeing -- each other. The end result of that, coupled with the sketchily drawn, "grey" characters, is that the difficult decision isn't as nerve wracking as it should be.
Thus, the film essentially boils down to a morality play featuring basically anonymously drawn characters. In its defense, the film's story still works, and it gets the audience not only to wonder what decision these guys will make, but also what decision they would make if faced with the same situation.
Much like the old college psych/sociology class scenario about being a surgeon forced to decide which sole person to save from a wide array of needy patients -- including your own kid -- the film is one of those soul-searching dramas. It's just too bad that director Joseph Ruben ("Money Train," "Sleeping With The Enemy") and screenwriters Wesley Strick ("Cape Fear") and Bruce Robinson ("Jennifer Eight") didn't give the characters more depth and thus make them more human.
Instead, they feel like the sketchily drawn characters found in those old college moral dilemma exercises. Consequently, we don't get that queasy feeling that should arise on its own about whether they've made the right decision.
This isn't to say that the performances aren't good -- on the contrary, they're quite good. It's just that they would have been so much better had we known more about the characters -- what makes them tick, what guides their lives -- but we only get hints of that. Sure, we see them grappling with what decision to make, but it mostly comes off as surface tension, and not some gut wrenching process.
The clear standout among the performers is easily Anne Heche ("Six Days, Seven Nights," "Wag The Dog") who continues to deliver one strong performance after another, and she seems to be gaining greater confidence in her thespian abilities with each picture. While we don't know much about her character here beyond the obvious, Heche manages to bring a desperate dignity to the role that plays quite well.
Vince Vaughn ("Swingers," "The Locusts") continues to impress with his performances, although I would have preferred him having a more fleshed out character with which to work. Still exuding that young Paul Newman/Marlon Brando aura, Vaughn does well with what he's been given, however, and his character's nebulous qualities keep the audience continually guessing about his final decision.
As the other friend faced with the same dilemma, David Conrad (TV's "Relativity") is good and probably portrays the most realistic, if underdeveloped of the characters. Joaquin Phoenix ("Inventing The Abbotts," "To Die For") is also good as the sickly prisoner who desperately wants to live, but like the other characters suffers from the audience not knowing much about what makes him tick. Jada Pinkett Smith ("The Nutty Professor," "Set It Off") is pretty much wasted in her small role that appears to have been left mostly on the editing room floor, or in the screenwriters' imaginations.
While some may find the proceedings as quite dramatically suspenseful and possibly even gut wrenching, the film just never connected for me. I can easily appreciate the dramatic dilemma facing the characters, but only wished that we knew more about them, and that the film possessed a greater sense of urgency.
Although we're constantly reminded of how many days are left in Lewis' life by the use of onscreen titles, I never felt that nervous and didn't get the feeling that the characters were either as they seemed to waste a lot of time while trying to force or come to a decision.
Featuring a great setup and decent to quite good performances, I found the film to be marred by its superficial qualities that prevented me from getting as involved in the story as I believed I should have been. Thus, "Return To Paradise" gets just a 6 out of 10.