DARK PARADISE
US, 2016, 89 minutes, Colour.
Boti Bliss, Antonio Sabato Jr, Ion Overman, Madison Spielvogel.
Directed by Michael Feiffer.
Dark Paradise is just a time-passer. The focus is almost completely on women, a con man being the villain.
The screenplay is not particularly subtle. It opens with scuba diving and a murder – which makes audiences immediately suspicious of the seemingly charming boat captain played by Antonia Sabato Jr. We are also introduced to a young woman who is bitter about life, especially her father and relationships who is visited by a lawyer who suddenly reveals that she has inherited more than $8 million because of an invention from her father in IT. She then decides to finance a holiday with two of her friends in Hawaii – where they meet the charming conman and she falls for him.
One of her friends is assaulted and goes into coma, and the young woman has to reassess her relationship with the captain. She returns to Hawaii.
Then disaster upon disaster, his disappearance, revelations about him, her bank accounts being emptied.
Although there is mention of connection with the FBI and the customs officers in Hawaii are helpful, the young woman and her best friend decide to take the law into their own hands and, comparatively easily within the time limits of the film, they track down the conman who is living in luxury in LA, drug him, force his pass word from him to recover the money, a shooting is involved – and the woman who was raped by him recovers.
1. The blend of romance and thriller for female sensibility?
2. Los Angeles settings, poor, affluent? Hawaiian settings? Luxury, the beaches and sea, scenery? Musical score?
3. The opening, the scuba diving, the murder, the dead woman, the malevolent man? Setting a tone for what followed?
4. Tamara’s story, her resentment of her father, his influence, her relationships? The lawyer, his news, her father and his death, the $8 million? The background her for her father in IT, his invention, in prison? Her response to the money? Financing the holiday for her friends?
5. The women, their sharing, going to Hawaii, Daphne and the resort, the encounter with Dario, his story about the boat, charm, Italian background and style? Tamara and the attraction? Time with him, the sexual relationship? Her scepticism? His seduction?
6. The friends, the rape and violence, the woman in coma? Family, the women and their support? Her coming out of the coma, her telling the truth, the audience seeing it in flashback? Dario and his attack?
7. Tamara, the decision to return to Hawaii, the infatuation with Dario? His disappearance, her bank account cleared? The stories about him and the boat? Going to the authorities in Hawaii?
8. The return, with Shelley? The FBI connections? Their taking the law into their own hands? The address, surveillance, following Dario, his Brazilian nationality, Shelley and her ploys, the fast car, the home, drugging him? Forcing him to give the information about the accounts? The gun, Tamara shooting his leg? His attack on Tamara, Shelley shooting him?
9. The recovery of the money? The happy ending?
10. A glossy potboiler?
