Popcorn Reviews With Cybèle: Return to Paradise 

By Cybèle Elaine Werts  
CybeleW@aol.com

Popcorn Kernel Rating (four possible): Four kernels for a gripping and realistic story. We all know that Juaquim Phoenix and Anne Heche are excellent actors, but it is newcomer Vince Vaughn that will blow you away.

Return to Paradise is another movie in the tradition of Missing and Midnight Express where Americans are caught in the entanglements of another country’s legal system. Three young men wile away a few months of their youth together in Malaysia with sex, drugs, and rock and roll, all of which are cheap, but hashish being the cheapest. When Sheriff (Vince Vaughn) and Tony (David Contrad) decide to return to New York City, they leave behind huge chunks of hashish that they weren’t able to consume, but had bought anyway because it was so cheap. Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix) stays behind to work on a save the orangutan project, but ends up in jail for the hashish. He doesn’t rat on his friends until he is about to be hanged, with just seven days to go. His lawyer Beth (Anne Heche) comes to New York to convince Sheriff and Tony to return to Malaysia to save his life.

The catch is that they will have to each their own three year sentence in the same prison, one of rice meals, no blankets and stone floors. This is the central theme of this movie, the one that will keep you awake nights. Would you give up three years of your life to save someone else’s life? What if it was in a third world country where you would not have the clean and well fed prison life available in America? What if you had no written contract that you’d be free after those free years?

Would you do it?

Rent this video to see what Sheriff and Tony did. It’s worth every penny and every minute.

Suggested Gustatory Accompaniment: Steamed white rice with no embellishments.

Copyright 2000