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List Price: $19.95 | | Label: Polygram USA Video
Salesrank: 87445
Released: April 27, 1999 |
| Our Price: $9.99 |
| Used Price: $3.86 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
In Malaysia, three young Americans with little else in common are united in a shared enthusiasm for beer, women, and righteous hashish. Eventually, "Sheriff" (Vince Vaughn) and Tony (David Conrad) head back to New York. Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix), a spacey but good-hearted sort, stays on with the notion of helping save the orangutans. Two years later, a brassy lawyer (Anne Heche) shows up in Manhattan with the news that her client, Lewis, has spent the interim in Penang prison. Arrested for a prankish misdemeanor they all shared in, he's taking the rap for something worse: the dope stash they left him holding was a fatal few grams over the limit. Unless his fellow Americans return voluntarily to (literally) share the weight, in eight days Lewis will be hanged as a drug trafficker.
Eight days is about as long as Return to Paradise stayed on theater screens--the victim, perhaps, of Anne Heche-Ellen DeGeneres burnout in the press, or just too damn many movies out there to keep track of. Whatever the reason, it's a pity, because this is one of the most compelling movie-movies in recent memory. The screenplay turns the ethical-psychological thumbscrews with insidious effectiveness, despite the probability that the two writers brought separate agendas to the project--Wesley (Cape Fear) Strick working the complicity of the two home boys (each represents the halving of the other's prison sentence if they both agree to go back), and Bruce (The Killing Fields) Robinson revving his engines for another face-off of implacable East and irresponsible West. And director Joseph Ruben, specialist in serving up B-movie excitement with class-A skill (Dreamscape, The Stepfather), does his sleekest work yet.
But the real news is a trio of career-best performances: Phoenix, harrowing as a child-man whose sanity has been all but eaten away by terror; Vaughn limning a fascinating portrait of a man at war with himself, self-interest and furtive decency seesawing in his conscience; and Heche, part cagey poker player, part angel of mercy, mixing strength, delicacy, and desperation with devastating precision. Oscar blinked, three times. --Richard T. Jameson
Return to Paradise Reviews:
Haunted forever... 
2009-02-28 - I will start off by saying there are problems with this movie. The relationships the characters create and build, how fleshed out the characters are, and the pacing, all need some work. But my GOD, does Phoenix give an outstanding performance! If you like him, rent it just for him. I will not give this movie away, but just to mention that Phoenix's expressions, his words, his emotions, are etched into my mind forever. Up there with the best screen performances of all time: F. Murray Abraham in "Amadeus", Jimmy Stewart in "Wonderful Life", Anthony Hopkins in "Lambs", Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice". Not kidding, he's that good.
GREAT MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!
2009-02-20 - i was looiking for this movie for a every long time and couldent find it anywhere i got on here found it and brought it right away this is a movie about how true your friendship is with someone would you give up 3 to 6 years of your life for your frinds life??
Great Film!!
2008-07-07 - I have watched this movie over and over, i never get sick of it. It is a very serious film that opens your eyes to the affect media has on certain situations. All roles are played perfectly. I definately advise anyone and everyone to buy this film, it is fantastic, even the 100th time you watch it.
Great movie.......
2008-06-22 - "Return to Paradise" is a great movie!
It never really got alot of attention. Check out the cast, if the movie was released today, it was be huge-
Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, Joaquin Phoenix, David Conrad, Vera Farmiga
Great storyline, great characters and a tragic ending!
If this one got by you, track it down, it's worth it!
Return to Paradise
2008-02-14 - Being a now middle aged child of the sixties with friends that these three mimicked I found the movie compelling and actually overwhelming with the intense need to know at the end of the film if the promise to Sheriff ( Vince Vaughn) in fact came true or if he suffered the same fate as his friend for coming forward to " the powers that be" and owning up to his involvement so that he could be a "good and righteous person". Once again a story showing how the "legal powers that be" do not take into consideration the humanity especially when it comes to these drug crimes. I wanted to know if this is a take off of a true story and wanted to have the happy ending when all was resolved. I probably will not sleep tonite. Vince Vaughn's character was intense.
