Not very good

“Trapped in Paradise” should have been good. There’s a terrific comic cast here of Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz, and Dana Carvey, all participating in a mad-cap chase picture written by George Gallo, who just so happened to write “Midnight Run”. Instead this feels like what would happen if Ted Demme’s brilliantly underrated “The Ref” went wrong.


Cage plays a character named Bill Firpo, who unlike his two brothers, believes in karma. Not Dave (Lovitz) and Alvin (Carvey) though. They’re two kleptos who make it their mission in life to try and sneak-steal anything that’s not nailed down. Recently given early release from prison, the two brothers convince Bill to take them to a quaint little town called Paradise, Pennsylvania during Christmas where they claim they’re doing a favor for a cellmate. Instead, they’re actually screwing him over- stealing a slam dunk bank job he had planned for his release.


From here Gallo can’t help himself- his whole plot becomes a series of contrivances and opportunities to over-populate it with way too many people. The brothers find themselves unable to get out of Paradise, the FBI, escaped cellmate, and two morons who run the general store are all after them for the money. They also wind up running into the town bank president, his daughter, the brother’s mother, and other townspeople several times. Gallo’s intentions are honorable at least- through spending time with these people, will the brother’s soften and let the spirit of the season take over? But “Trapped” is way too transparent to make that seem like any kind of conflict and Gallo is way too interested in witless chases where cars skid through the snowy streets of Paradise. This movie needs to calm down to find its heart, it never does.


Any laughs in this movie happen more towards the beginning. Cage is doing a lot of heavy lifting- not only giving his usual high energy but also imbuing the film’s weak dialogue with all manner of voice inflections to give it some comic life. Lovitz and Carvey seem like they’re doing a sketch where they play one-note Italian street hoods- the latter of which is kinda funny in his nonchalant thievery but as the film wears on, the Mickey Rourke on helium voice he gives this character gets all the more annoying. The movie makes a terrible miscalculation in continuing to put these two front and center, where at least Cage and some of the actors could have tried to give it sincerity. Instead, the whole movie plays like sound and motion signifying nothing but more sound and motion. At two hours, that can feel like a trap of its own.