Guest House Paradiso
| Guest House Paradiso | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Adrian Edmondson |
| Written by | Rik Mayall Adrian Edmondson |
| Produced by | Phil McIntyre |
| 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 Pictures |
Release date | December 3, 1999 |
Running time | 89 minutes |
| Country | Template:Film UK |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £3,000,000 |
Guest House Paradiso is a 1999 British slapstick comedy film written by and starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, and directed by Edmondson his directorial debut. It is semi officially based on their comedy television series Bottom (in some territories, the DVD cover refers to it as "The Bottom Movie"). 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.
Plot
Featuring images of Weston Manor in Totland Isle Of Wight in 1999 Richie (Rik Mayall) and Eddie (Adrian Edmondson) run the worst guest house in the United Kingdom, neighbouring a poorly maintained nuclear power station (presumably a reference to Sellafield). 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 Bolognese (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.