Guest House Paradiso
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| Guest House Paradiso | |
| Directed by | Ade Edmondson |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Phil McIntyre |
| Written by | Rik Mayall Ade Edmondson |
| Starring | Rik Mayall Adrian Edmondson Vincent Cassel Hélène Mahieu Bill Nighy Simon Pegg Fenella Fielding Lisa Palfrey Kate Ashfield Steve O'Donnell Sophia Myles Emma Pierson James D'Arcy Kate Loustau Joseph Hughes Jessica Mann |
| Distributed by | Universal |
| Running time | 89 min. |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £3,000,000 |
Guest House Paradiso is a 1999 comedy slapstick film, starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, and directed by Edmondson. It is based on their comedy television series Bottom. The key difference in the characters is in their names: Rik's character, known as "Richard Richard" in the TV show, is here referred to as "Richard Twat" (although he regularly and angrily insists on the pronunciation "Thwaite"). Ade's character changes from "Edward Elizabeth Hitler" in the TV/Live show to "Edward Elizabeth Ndingo-m'baba".
The film was made at Ealing studios and on location on the Isle of Wight.
[edit] Plot
Richie (Rik Mayall) and Eddie (Ade Edmondson) run the worst guest house in the United Kingdom, neighbouring a nuclear power station. The chef is an idiotic drunkard (and illegal immigrant) who can't cook and eventually leaves due to not being paid. The guests are totally unsatisfied (one of them played by Bill Nighy) at the poor service, and all decide to leave, except for one "Mrs Foxfur" (Fenella Fielding) who lives there.
The most famous scene in the film, and the most violent, is Richie and Eddie's fight in the kitchen, from smacking each other's heads in the fridge door, Richie putting meat hooks up Eddie's nose and crashing him about the place, to Eddie crushing Richie's testicles with (appropriately) a nutcracker.
Life seems bleak for Eddie and Richie, but things seemingly improve with the arrival of the "Nice family", with Simon Pegg playing the father. Furthermore, the famous Italian actress "Gina Carbonara" (Hélène Mahieu) comes to stay in the grotty house seeking safety from her ill-tempered fiancé Gino (Vincent Cassel). However Gino does eventually find her at the guest house as Eddie and Richard had put her name up in lights outside in order to attract more guests.
Later, Richie finds some fish, which fell off a military lorry heading away from the nuclear power station. Richie and Eddie don't realise that the fish had been contaminated by a radiation leak until they feed them to the guests. Hours later the guests are expelling huge quantities of green vomit at high velocity – all except for Gina Carbonara, apparently the only guest who did not eat the fish. In the resulting chaos, Gina's violent boyfriend is propelled out of a window into the sea by a tidal wave of vomit from the rest of the guests and presumably drowned.
Government agents arrive to hush up the incident and give Eddie and Richie ten million pounds, first class tickets to a Caribbean island and new identities for both the duo and Gina in exchange for their silence over the leak. The three accept the offer, and head to the Caribbean.
[edit] Trivia
- Featured an early appearance by Sophia Myles, who went on to star in Thunderbirds (2004), Tristan & Isolde (2006) and Doctor Who in 2006.
- Film debut of Simon Pegg, who would later star in Shaun of the Dead (2004) — alongside Bill Nighy and Kate Ashfield, who also appeared in this film together — Hot Fuzz (2007) and, similarly, an episode of Doctor Who in 2005.
- The film contains a number of references to the TV and live show versions of Bottom. Notable examples are Richies's maniacal laughter in response to the joke, told by a guest (Mary Celeste), and the slamming of Richie's head in the fridge door; both of which appeared in the TV version of Bottom. The idea of the residents vomiting violently, near the end of the movie, was taken from the live show — Bottom 3: Hooligans Island — when Richard eats a fish he found floating in the latrine, only to vomit it out in a spray-like manner.
- James D'Arcy and Sophia Myles worked together in the television movie The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
