Return to Paradise

This remake of the 1990 French film Force Majeure has one notable dramatic bombshell. Picking up three college grads having a ball in Malaysia, the film dispassionately observes them as unself-consciously ugly Americans screwing and smoking their way through a Third World 'paradise'. Two years on, we're forced to reassess the trio's 'innocent' hijinks. A lawyer, Beth (Heche), tracks down first Sheriff (Vaughn), then Tony (Conrad). Breaking to them that she represents their old pal Lewis (Phoenix), she chills them with the news that, unbeknown to them, he was imprisoned by the Malay authorities the morning they left for home - for possessing drugs they all three shared. He's sentenced to hang in a week, unless his friends return to accept their share of the punishment. It's a painful prospect, to be sure, and Sheriff, in particular, insists he's no hero, but the next hour or so of handwringing conjures little suspense.