Dark Paradise

Implausible at times yet entertaining with unexpected twists. A film should entertain this does & more so than overrated films such as Gosford Park (load about nowt) & Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (plenty of image but no plot). I didn't expect a masterpiece & it wasn't but hey I've seen much worse films than this

Badly scripted lines delivered badly and captured badly on film... This is a bad film. What's your price to sell off your morals and beliefs? For Tamara, played by Boti Bliss, it's 8.3 million dollars. Right from the start this story starts hitting the cliche list. Tamara is a woman who's life was ruined by her father. What did her father do to ruin her life, you ask? He walked out on her and her mom... and being the weak women that they were they let this incident affect their entire lives forward - this is "cliche three" ("cliche one" is the bad boyfriend we see before this incident and "cliche two" is the cat she owns because she's a sad and lonely woman (and we never see the poor old puddywack again)). She tells the estate lawyer that she wants absolutely nothing to do with her absentee father or anything he may have left her, she is venemous to the extreme about this - "cliche four". Then the lawyer tells her it's 8.3 million and boy you can see that she climaxes in her pants on the spot - "cliche five". And of course there's no thoughts about not excepting her Daddy's generous gift - "cliche six"... and we're only ten minutes into the story.

From here on in it gets worse, much worse. There's nothing worthy in this story or film to save it and make it worth a viewing - I wasted an hour and a half so you don't need to. I mean, even the direction is so bad that the continuity errors actually scream at you. There are a couple of times when Tamara waves from the front of the villa at Dario (Sabato Jr) on his yacht. In front of the villa is nothing but open sea and a couple of distant islands - though when we see Dario wave back he's in a harbour with trees behind him. If he's in a harbour on one of the distant islands then Tamara has better eyesight than an eagle or a hawk. There's even a wonderful binocular scene where the image actually gets closer. Binoculars are fixed and do not zoom. Then there's a wonderful scene where the director uses a fisheye lens to give the audience the effect of actual seasickness.

Though the worst thing is towards to the end of the film when we get the reveal. This is so unrealistic and implausible to be completely stupid. Even though there's a lot going on in the film nothing is properly explored or utilised to it's best advantage. This is such a waste of a story - even though it's not a particularly good one.

Actually , the main reason I stayed with this movie was because of the georgous Antonio Sabato !!! Plus the location was pretty nice also .

And I am sure, that for the male viewers , it was pretty entertaining also because of the three bikini prancing women , who , for the most part acted like teenage schoolgirls !!!!

Look, the plot was ridiculous , the acting very suspect , and the script ? .... hilarious !

But , having said all that , I kind of enjoyed it , probably because it was so silly , and of course because I could watch the lovely Antonio !!!

I wonder how many millions of dollars have been spent on appalling made for TV movies such as this one. The performances by the actors, if you can actually call them as such, was as bad as it gets and the script warrants a zero. That's an hour or so I'll never get back and to those considering watching this drivel I have one word, "DON'T"

The opening is a good indication of how bad this TV movie is going to be.

The casting is awful. I think the lead actress may have paid to be in because she is such an inappropriate choice. She and her two friends act like silly teenagers and the bad boy "love interest" Dario, looks old enough to be her father. She is a completely plain, girl next door type and has an awkward body so the fact he chose her out of the other two is suspicious from the start.

This script and acting are very poor and glaring continuity mistakes are ignored. When the girls are frolicking on their private beach and we see Dario staring at them through 'zoom lens' (?) binoculars from a boat in a dock with trees behind him but there is only open sea when they look out from the beach at him. Plus the angles are all wrong. Another day he crosses the water towards them in a motorized dingy but in their POV there's no yacht in sight behind him. Perhaps it was still at the mysterious marina!

The script just gets more and more implausible. The characters have no chemistry with each other. Not even the girlfriends. The end is not worth commenting on. So ridiculous.

I give it 3 stars because of the lovely locations.