Paradise City Review: John Travolta Comes to Play in Chuck Russell’s Inept Schlockfest

If only everyone else had followed Travolta’s lead, then the film might have lived up to its title.

Paradise City
Photo: Saban Films

In another era, an action movie headlined by Bruce Willis and John Travolta would have huge box office potential. Nowadays, though, Paradise City is just another entry in a long line of cheap-looking VOD efforts that have dominated the careers of both actors for the last decade. It’s nevertheless been a sustainable career path for the Hollywood icons, though in the case of Willis, it’s one that’s had a sad pall cast over it in the wake of the revelation of his battle with aphasia while continuing to churn out film after film (this marks his 11th in 2022 alone).

With that in mind, Willis plays Ian Swan, a bounty hunter who has come to sunny Maui, Hawaii, on the trail of a notoriously elusive criminal named Terrance Billford. Right away, we’re dropped into a beach-set firefight where Ian is shot and presumably killed by Billford’s mercenaries. The visual ineptitude in this sequence is commonplace for a late-period Willis enterprise; at one point, Ian heads into the water to evade gunfire, but when he’s hit by a bullet a moment later, the character is confusingly right back on the beach where the scene started. But it’s nevertheless disappointing coming from director Chuck Russell, maker of such colorful hits like The Blob, The Mask, and Eraser that are shot through with a funhouse-like sensibility.

This chaotic opening serves the dual purpose of kicking the plot into motion and allowing Willis to largely disappear for the remainder of the film, popping up sporadically in flashbacks while heavily aided by body doubles. Paradise City then shifts its focus to Ian’s son, Ryan (Blake Jenner), and old partner, Robbie Cole (Stephen Dorff), who team up alongside a local cop, Savannah (Praya Lundberg), to bring down Billford once and for all.

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Their investigation brings them to Mr. Buckley (John Travolta), a mysterious businessman with dubious political ties and a hand in unlawful mining operations. Russell and co-screenwriters Edward Drake and Corey Large tease out Buckley’s obvious involvement with Billford in painfully dull fashion, and in between anemically staged battles with anonymous henchmen.

Paradise City’s eventual twists and turns are all glaringly telegraphed throughout, with the film culminating in a slack denouement that seemingly pays homage to John Woo’s Face/Off. Some tepid sentiments about colonization and environmental destruction are thrown in for good measure (the title refers to a natural sanctuary that the local population is trying to protect from Buckley’s mining aspirations), but it’s chiefly an excuse to pad out the film with crummy landscape drone shots. (And speaking of padding, the end credits stretch on for 10 minutes, complete with an extended blooper reel that offers the odd sight of Willis waving to a turtle.)

But at least Travolta comes to play. Where the rest of the cast largely sleepwalks through the film, Travolta gives the kind of flamboyant performance that used to be a hallmark of low-grade action flicks. Akin to his hammy turns in recent schlockfests like The Fanatic, he conveys every ridiculous line of (seemingly improvised) dialogue with hypnotic fervor, whether waxing poetic about the coffee he’s drinking or casually declaring, “The only thing that I’m scared of is me. And I am me. So there’s nothing to be scared of.” If only more of the film’s creatives had followed his lead, then Paradise City might have lived up to its title.

Score: 
 Cast: Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Stephen Dorff, Branscombe Richmond, Blake Jenner, Amber Abara, Kate Katzman, Corey Large, Sarah Ashley Rodriguez, Lorenzo Antonucci, Carrie Bernans, Praya Lundberg  Director: Chuck Russell  Screenwriter: Edward Drake, Corey Large, Chuck Russell  Distributor: Saban Films  Running Time: 92 min  Rating: R  Year: 2022  Buy: Video

Mark Hanson

Mark Hanson is a film writer and curator from Toronto, Canada, and the product manager at Bay Street Video, one of North America's last remaining video stores.

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