★★★
“Death in Paradise”
Despite coming in as a “Tubi Original” – a badge which has previously been as much a warning as an incentive – this isn’t bad at all. It doesn’t especially push any envelopes, yet what it does, it does well enough, and with sufficient variations on the theme to keep me interested. Ella Patchet (Allison) is the daughter of Dan, the local police chief on the island of Paradise (it was shot in Hawaii). She’s rather hot-headed and a big fan of guns, to the concern of her father, who prefers to do his job without being armed. He gets tipped off about the return to Paradise of the gang led by Lee Paige, whom he ran off the island years previously. Shortly after, Dan turns up dead.
Needless to say, Ella is not happy, and vows to bring Paige to justice, despite the warnings of local mayor Calvin Whitney (Donovan), who does not want her going all vigilante. His concerns are not Ella’s concerns, to put it mildly, and she begins working her way up the chain of crime to the reclusive and mysterious Paige. However, you likely won’t be surprised to learn there are surprises for her on the way, and things aren’t exactly as they initially appear. From the opening credits, it’s clear that Isaacson is going for an “ocean Western”, for want of a better word. He largely succeeds: you could relocate this to 1860’s Texas without too much effort, though it’s beach-centric.
Patchet makes for an interesting heroine, whom we first meet getting thrown out of a bar. In some ways, she acts like she is about fifteen, but in others comes across as very mature. Certainly, she’s an unstoppable force, who’s both intelligent and driven. It’s definitely a case where firearms act as a great equalizer. You don’t have to suspend your disbelief about a smaller woman taking down larger men, because she simply shoots them in the head. This is undeniably violent, Ella racking up a fair body-count, and it works both ways, with a couple of unexpected, almost shocking deaths. There’s a scene-stealing turn from Tia Carrere, while I enjoyed the villain’s lead henchmen basically saying “Screw this” and walking away.
In general though, the plotting is nothing special: the twists come as far more of a shock to the characters than the viewers. It’s also a little implausible how Ella can leave a trail of corpses, including state police, without becoming the subject of a massive manhunt. [Also, in reality, Hawaii has some of the strictest gun laws in the whole country] It feels as if the script would have benefited from a further revision or two, and if you are paying attention, you’ll work out where the final confrontation is going, a long way before it happens. But between Ella’s charisma and the style with which Isaacson delivers things, it held my attention without these issues becoming problematic.
Dir: Max Isaacson
Star: Patricia Allison, Tate Donovan, Myles Evans, Adam Lustick


★★★½
I’m always down for an Olga Kurylenko film. She’s been in some good entries on the site previously, including
It’s surprising to me that there are currently no English-language external reviews listed for this on the IMDb. It’s certainly worthy of notice outside its native Spain, where it was nominated for thirteen Goyas, the local equivalent of the Oscars, winning Best Film and Best Actress. It takes place over a number of years around the turn of the millennium, when the Spanish state was in a notorious and bloody war against ETA, a terrorist group fighting for the independence of the Basque region. Mónica (Yuste) is a cop who is recruited by Angel (Tosar) to go deep undercover, and infiltrate ETA in order to provide information on the group, its members and their plans.
As a child, Oo-yi came to Thailand with her mother as a migrant worker. They had the misfortune to work for the cruel Madam Bussara (Kingpayome), who had a particularly nasty habit of pimping out young girls to her lawyer, Methi. When she tried to do the same to Oo-yi, Mom stood up for her – and was beaten to death for her pains. Oo-yi was able to escape, and raised by Ni Wai (Sirikul). Now, an adult (Luevisadpaibul), she is set on vengeance, and intent on destroying Madam Bussara’s life. To do so, she becomes Thicha, “accidentally” bumps into Bussara’s son, Phatchai (Chirathivat), and begins cultivating a relationship with him. But that’s the story of revenge: it’s messy. Since her feelings for him start becoming genuine.
And, unfortunately, in this case, it’s not messy in a good or even interesting way. It’s messy in a “What the heck is going on?” way, with a large side-order of, “Can somebody please explain this to me?”, and a garnish of “Anyone? Hello?”. To say this film poses more questions than answers would be incorrect. Because that would wrongly imply it offers any answers at all. I’m just glad the version I saw ran a mere 84 minutes, because the IMDb cites a running time more than half an hour longer. Maybe the thirty-five minutes removed for this cut were all of the explanation. Though I suggest it’d be improved by removing about the same again.
I wonder if this film was made as some kind of bet. How many tropes and clichés can
I get the idea of what this is trying to do: really, be a female-centric version of The Hitcher. Though to some extent, that franchise went there itself, in The Hitcher II: I’ve Been Waiting. Here, we have Bobbi Torres (Camacho) driving across New Mexico in her sweet muscle car, and when she stops for fuel, has an awkward encounter with Sheriff Bilstein (Schwab). Things get worse when she gets back on the road, and is quickly pulled over by the officer for speeding, which gets her a thousand dollar ticket she is unable to pay. Thanks to a prologue, we know Bilstein has a psychopathic fondness for tormenting and killing young women. This ain’t gonna end well.
At the beginning of this, I wondered if I was watching a Godzilla film. Because it opens with atomic bomb footage, depicting French test in the Pacific. We know what this leads to: gigantic lizards with fiery bre… Oh, hang on: it’s actually a group of women, looking for a place reputed to have particularly gnarly (if my knowledge of beach-speak doesn’t fail me, and it probably does) waves. There are three surfers, plus photographer Sarah (Galloy), who has been out of the game since an accident which wrecked her confidence. The island they find isn’t on any map, so it must be good, and not a death-trap waiting to happen to them. Right?
For a good while, this struggled to retain my interest, and when it did, the problems outweighed the positive aspects. Fortunately, after a solid hour of faffing around in ways that provoked mostly rolling of my eyes, the film found its stride. That’s funny, because it’s a running reference. Ok, not very funny. Down the stretch it both figuratively and literally pushes the pedal to the metal, in quite an impressive manner. My reaction was divided. Part of me wondered, where the heck this was earlier on? However, rather than petering out like a sad trombone, there’s no question it’s better for a film to finish strongly, and give the viewers something positive to take away with them.