Trapped in Paradise
| Trapped in Paradise | |
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| Directed by | George Gallo |
| Produced by | George Gallo |
| Written by | George Gallo |
| Starring | Nicolas Cage Jon Lovitz Dana Carvey |
| Music by | Robert Folk |
| Cinematography | Jack N. Green |
| Editing by | Terry Rawlings |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | December 2, 1994 |
| Running time | 111 minutes |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $6,017,509[1] |
Trapped in Paradise is a 1994 Christmas-themed crime comedy film written and directed by George Gallo, and starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz, and Dana Carvey.
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[edit] Plot
It's Christmas time. Bill Firpo (Nicolas Cage) is a straight-laced New York restaurant manager, who gets an unpleasant Christmas gift; his brothers Dave (Jon Lovitz) and Alvin (Dana Carvey) are paroled early due to overcrowding and placed in Bill's custody. Dave and Alvin ask their brother to take them to Paradise, Pennsylvania to do a favor for a fellow inmate of theirs. Bill refuses because one, his brothers are not allowed out of New York state and two, he knows Dave's pathological tendencies. He only agrees after getting tied to a robbery their brothers made via his dropped wallet. When they discover Paradise's bank is light on security, Bill feels the urge to rob it if he had a gun. Fortunately, there are guns in the Infiniti sedan Dave and Alvin borrowed. With Alvin driving a stolen decrepit car, Bill and Dave storm the bank. The wife of the bank's president (Angela Paton) tells them that the bank safe door is locked and the president, Mr. Clifford Anderson (Donald Moffat) who has the key is having lunch in the restaurant nearby. While Dave stays in the bank doing yoga breathing with the hostages, Alvin and Bill charge into the restaurant and call in a robbery. They order all customers to come with Bill over to the bank so that no one calls the police when they go. Mr. Anderson opens the safe's door and Bill checks for motion sensors via a perfume. He steps over the sensors gets the money but while getting out of the safe he touches the sensors via one of the money bags. Bill and Dave rush out of the bank and get away with their crime, stealing $275,000.
While trying to get out of town with their car and stolen money, Alvin, who's driving, gets them lost. A police car turns on the sirens and they try to evade getting caught. Because the Infiniti has no snow chains, it drifts over a bridge and gets wrecked. The police officer does not see them crash and drives past the bridge, but another car stops and offers them a ride. Due to the interstates being closed the man takes them to his relatives to stay over for Christmas. After arriving at the house, they find out it is the house of bank president Mr. Anderson. However, the relatives don't recognize them because they were covering their faces with ski masks while robbing the bank.
Vic Mazzucci (Vic Manni), the inmate who gave Dave and Alvin the tip about the low security of this bank gets enraged that they robbed the bank and gets out of jail. He and his henchman, Caesar, takes their mother, Edna (Florence Stanley) hostage and threatens to kill her unless they give him the stolen money.
Bill gets bus tickets and while getting out, the FBI asks him to open the bag he is carrying with him, which contains all of the money. The bag is grabbed by Ed Dawson (John Ashton) and Clovis Minor (John Bergantine), two inept shopkeepers, made "deputies" by the local police chief. Bill tricks the FBI through shooting rounds from Ed's gun in the ground making the crowd run around and gets away with his bag. However, they miss their bus. They then try to get away via a boat. The boat is headed towards a waterfall and Alvin falls into the water. The town people pull Alvin out of water and rescue him through CPR.
Alvin steals a horse carriage from the police chief's son. The police chase the carriage but after they drive into the forest the police cars were unable to continue the chase. They ditch the horse carriage and decide to hitchhike. However, the horse, Merlin, gets pulled into the water making them save it and go to a truck stop instead. There Bill and Alvin decide to return the money to the bank while Dave refuses, knowing that their mother would be killed if they do so (Bill and Alvin are unaware of this). Alvin, then, reveals to Bill he is not wanted in New York and that he's had his brother's wallet, all along. Upset, Bill leaves his two brothers, then heads off to return the money and asks strangers for a ride to Paradise. By coincidence, he winds up getting a ride with Vic and Caesar, who are holding his mother hostage. Bill shows them his mother's picture, whereupon Vic tries to shoot him so he can get the money Bill has in the bag. Bill jumps out of the car and escapes, rescued by Dave, Alvin and Merlin.
They try to get the money back into the bank but trigger the alarm through using the wrong safe door key. They give then the money to a church with a letter requesting to return it to the town's people. Trying to get away, Ed and Clovis, who had sold the Firpoes the ski masks before the robbery recognize them and want the money for themselves, therefore go with them to the Anderson house. Vic and Caesar are there and knock Ed out, then take Clovis and the Firpoes hostage, along with everyone else there.
The police sees license plates in front of the Anderson house of a stolen car and order therefore Vic and Caesar to come out with their hands held up. While the inmates are busy figuring out what to do, they get attacked by the chief's son who immobilizes Caesar and shoots Vic. The police rush into the house and take everyone to the office. There, FBI agent Peyser (Richard Jenkins) tries to figure out what happened and because the town's people hide what they know about Bill, Alvin, and Dave and the church pastor returns the money to the police, they release them. Bill stays in Paradise to be with Sarah Collins (Mädchen Amick), Vic's daughter and a tenant of the Andersons and Alvin and Dave return with their mother to New York.
[edit] Cast
- Nicolas Cage ... Bill Firpo
- Jon Lovitz ... Dave Firpo
- Dana Carvey ... Alvin Firpo
- Mädchen Amick ... Sarah Collins
- Florence Stanley ... Edna 'Ma' Firpo
- Donald Moffat ... Clifford Anderson
- Angela Paton ... Hattie Anderson
- Vic Manni ... Vic Mazzucci
- Frank Pesce ... Caesar Spinoza
- John Ashton ... Ed Dawson
- John Bergantine ... Clovis Minor
- Sean McCann ... Chief Bernie Burnell
- Richard Jenkins ... Agent Shaddus Peyser
- Paul Lazar ... Deputy Timmy Burnell
- Sean O'Bryan ... Dick Anderson
- Gerard Parkes ... Father Gorenzel
- Richard B. Shull ... Father Ritter
- Jack Heller ... Chief Parole Officer
- Mike Steiner ... Monty Dealer
- Blanca Jansuzian ... Shopkeeper
- Greg Ellwand ... Cop #1
- Kirk Dunn ... Cop #2
- Cherie Ewing ... Woman in Restaurant
- Jeff Levine ... Man in Restaurant
- Sandra Myers ... Diner #3
- Frank Berardino ... Diner #4
- Mabel ... Merlin
- Sarge ... Merlin
- Andrew Miller ... Deputy Myers
- Frank Blanch ... Rutag Guard
- Vivian Reis ... Lila
[edit] Production
- Filming was done in Ontario, Canada at Niagara-on-the-Lake.
- It is said that production was very unpleasant. Actor Jon Lovitz metioned the crew began referring to the film as "Trapped in Bullshit".
- At NYU during a master class session revolving around the film, Jon Lovitz admitted that the film was "shit." [2]
[edit] References
- ^ "Trapped in Paradise". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=trappedinparadise.htm. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
- ^ "'Thieving Magpies of Paradise'". Jerry Saravia. 2011-11-27. http://jerrysaravia.blogspot.com/2011/11/thieving-magpies-of-paradise.html.
[edit] External links
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