Kidnapped in Paradise

Rating

Director

Rob Hedden

Screenplay

David Chisholm, Barry J. Weitz

Length

1h 31m

Starring

Joely Fisher, Charlotte Ross, Robert Knepper, David Beecroft, Kerry Corcoran, Steve Du Mouchel, Renny Roker

MPAA Rating

PG-13

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
When a young woman is kidnapped during a boat hijacking, her sister must find a way to rescue her before it’s too late.

In Universal’s patently clichéd movie Kidnapped in Paradise, Joely Fisher plays Beth, a Denver lawyer who arrives on a tropical island to attend her sister Megan’s (Charlotte Ross) wedding. While they are on a pleasure cruise, pirates attack the ship and take Megan hostage. Beth goes on a crusade to rescue her sister, engaging a drunken ex-smuggler to assist.

From the opening scenes of the movie, you know what’s coming. A wealthy couple, drinking champagne on the open sea finds their boat boarded. They are promptly robbed and murdered by a group of smugglers. From there the film drags for 30 minutes while introducing its major and minor characters and situations. Not long after, the action begins and before long starts to drag again.

Kidnapped is yet another port in an ocean of tired plots and uninteresting situations. The entire premise leaves a bad taste in the mouth, but barely manages to squeak by with a somewhat pleasing chain of events and some entertaining performances.

Fisher’s first major role since the cancellation of the television program Ellen gives her a character to play that is worthy of her talents. She manages to remain vulnerable and remember her character’s weaknesses when others around her seemingly forget to do the same. Her passion is evident, although it’s sometimes misplaced.

Her character’s potential love interest is quite the opposite story. David Beecroft’s pathetic Matt is rarely drunk enough and never manages to win the audience’s emotional attachment. Charlotte Ross is similarly uninteresting as Beth’s sister Megan. She plays straightforward scared and happy and angry, but the finer shades of emotion are so hidden that she spends the entire film grasping at hollow sentiments. Robert Knepper gives the best performance in the film as the lust-driven captain of the smugglers. His vicious sexiness forces you to question whether being his prisoner would be paradise or torture.

Director Rob Hedden obviously knows how to frame a story, but he doesn’t try to improve upon a useless script, and he does nothing to improve any of several worthless performances. The production’s professionalism is evident, but quality filmmaking requires more than a professional appearance.

It’s not hard to see why this film was made. Kidnapped in Paradise is a popcorn flick all the way. It’s slow in many sections, but overall delivers plenty of explosions and lots of exposed flesh. If that’s all you want, then you might be satisfied with this hit-and-miss production.

Review Written

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