Nitya SabhnaniMovie Review: Paradise Lost
Andrea Di Stefano switches the actor’s limelight for the director’s chair with his debut film, Paradise Lost. The 43 year-old Italian, who both penned and directed the film, manages to capture the essence of a thriller movie with a hint of romance – for the most part.
Paradise Lost denotes the tale of a Canadian surfer named Nick Brady (Josh Hutcherson) and his brother Dylan (Brady Corbet), who both move to Colombia with dreams of running their own surf camp. The plot thickens when Nick falls in love with Maria (Claudia Traisac), whose uncle happens to be the infamous drug lord – Pablo Escobar (Benicio del Toro). Tough luck, mate.
The paradise of sun, sea and sand soon transforms into something more sinister, as Nick is gradually accepted into the Escobar family and finds himself embroiled in their line of ‘work’.
The first half of Paradise Lost is filled with fast paced and succinct scenes that oozed with adrenaline. The choppily edited shots shift from past to present, leaving you wide-eyed and hungry to know what happens next.
However, the movie starts to falter at its climax, where Nick realises that he was hunted by Pablo’s men after fulfilling his task of hiding the moustached-Columbian’s loot. Enraged and in danger, the betrayed flees and hides from his executioners. The film starts to get dreary from here onwards, filled with unrealistic escape scenarios and anticlimactic gunfights on Nick’s part. Be warned: This may be the time you start to question if this really is the same movie you started out watching. (We assure you, it is.)
The murky second half of the movie is accentuated with the burnout of Nick and Maria’s love story. The romance between the two characters is highlighted in the beginning of the film, and quickly escalates to the point where the two are betrothed (that’s a tad bit hasty). This unwittingly signifies the end of the film’s romantic aspect, as their love story is left rather neglected from that point on, and fizzles out toward the end of the movie.
What truly took the film to another level was Benicio Del Torro’s multifaceted interpretation of Pablo Escobar. The movie peels through the uppermost layer of Escobar as a philanthropist, right down to the core where lies a cold and ruthless drug kingpin, willing to sacrifice those whom he trusts for money and family. The gradual metamorphoses of Escobar from a flamboyant family man to a haggard state enemy was meticulously pulled off by Del Torro.
On the other hand, Hutcherson’s character, Nick, is rather humane. His morals are constantly in question as the movie goes along. He puts in a relatively strong performance, packing a punch with raw emotions of uncertainty and dread that slowly started to lag in the second half. Similarly, characters like Maria are given a prominent introduction into the movie but are poorly developed, fading away towards the end of the film.
With a captivating first half that includes a realistic antagonist and relatable characters, it disappoints with a draggy second half that fails to drum up the emotions it intends to. Paradise Lost is a somewhat worthy watch for its electrifying start and Benicio Del Torro’s stellar performance, but giving the movie a miss wouldn’t be the worst thing you did this week.
[xrr rating=3/5 display_as=textstars label=”Our Rating:”]
Tell us what you think of Paradise Lost in the ‘Comments’ section below!
Information:
Release Date: 2 July 2015
Runtime: 120 minutes
Language: English
Censorship Rating: PG 13
Genre: Romance/Thriller
Director: Andrea Di Stefano
Main Actors: Benicio Del Toro, Josh Hutcherson, Claudia Traisac