Paradise Cove

I probably should of watched the trailer before I put this on. I liked the concept but this movie sucked. Some of the acting and cinematography were terrible. I wouldn't recommend watching this film. 4 stars.

The most intriguing thing about this movie was that it was SO awful that it borderlines on comical. The acting was on par with a poorly produced lifetime movie, and that was the best part... An emotionally abusive couple moves in to an I'll-gotten beach house with the intention of flipping the property (with the help of their pothead contractor, Griff, who is only good for pretending to get high. The couples plans are put on hold when they discover a mentally I'll homeless woman living beneath the home. Chaos ensues as the couple attempts to flip the property, have a child over the age of 40, all while being thwarted at every turn by "Bree" the psychotic squatter.

This movie has absolutely no redeeming value. Trust ur instincts, pass in this one.

Although it's a complete rip off and of the Keaton thriller it does have a couple redeeming qualities, one being Kristin Straten. Watchable but forgettable.

It's hard to feel invested in a movie where the characters behave in ways that logical humans would not. The husband constantly downplays the wife's concerns, when if anything, they should both be MORE concerned. An unstable woman is squatting below their house and that woman is breaking and entering and claiming the house is hers. That's not a nuisance. That's a BIG PROBLEM and to treat it otherwise is just unrealistic. It's always better in storytelling when the characters do everything a logical person would do and yet STILL find themselves in trouble.

Also, how long has this woman been homeless? There's a point where a person's Botox and face and lip fillers would have worn off. Or am I supposed to believe a homeless woman is buying plastic surgery and aesthetic procedures?

On a positive, it's kind of a throwback to domestic thrillers like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle or Pacific Heights. That far-fetched weirdly uncomfortable scenario.

This felt like one of those cheesy made-for-TV Lifetime movies, but worse. The concept story was actually decent - and the main reason I gave this film a chance, but 15 mins in, it felt like a high school drama class production.

Paradise Cove was newb writer Sherry Klein's 5th writing credit, all previous mainly TV movies (which explains the Lifetime TV movie feel). Considering she's a newb, there's some forgiveness for her long dragged out screenplay. It had decent continuity, but lots of plot and technical issues, as well as many "huh" and "wtf" moments. It was highly predictable, with nothing left for the imagination, and the scenes were long and dragged out. The 103 min runtime felt like 3+ hours with the terribly slow pacing. This screenplay needed to be cut/edited down to "at most" a 1 hour TV movie length. You can pretty much fast-forward this film at 10x faster speed, and be done in 15-20 minutes and not miss a thing - even without hearing the dialogue.

But were there is no forgiveness, is the terrible directing from seasoned director Martin Guigui. He could and should have upped the ante with the screenplay he was given. But instead, it felt like a high school drama class production. He had a great cast to work with, but failed to direct them properly. All the acting felt like a bad soap opera, and I know the 3 experienced leads can perform much better. The only somewhat convincing and thrilling performance was Kristin Bauer van Straten. The cinematography was bland, with a 1980's camcorder production feel to it. Malibu deserved sharp bright summer colors - bright orange and yellows, with beautiful blues for the sea and sky, instead of the drab pale and bland color choices that were made.

The score was ok, although I don't recall hearing much of it, which I guess is better than the loud, overbearing and annoying typical b-grade film scores. I'm giving this one a very generous 4/10. Never mind the two current bogus 10/10's, and I'm sure there will be many more, considering the effort from one-week member "David_Vogel_1", who managed to watch 49 movies in exactly 7 days, and rated all of them a 1 or 10 lol. To see how generous my 4 is, compare it to the professional Top Critics on Rotten Tomatoes where it's at 29%. So, should you invest almost 2 hours to see this? Unless you're an obsessed fan of Todd Grinnell, Mena Suvari or Kristin Bauer van Straten, I'd steer clear of this one.