Paradise Lost

Jun 1 2007 By The Journal

Plot: Promoting an image of Brazil which is - aptly enough - nuts, this is a bloodthirsty adventure thriller about a sadistic doctor so enraged by the West's exploitation of his country that he has taken to kidnapping unwary, foreign backpackers and stealing their vital organs while they're still alive.

American beefcake Alex (Josh Duhamel), his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde), her best friend Amy, an Australian backpacker called Pru, and lackadaisical British best friends Finn and Liam are thrown together in adversity when their bus crashes on a mountain road.

Seeking refuge in cool beers on the beach, the strangers quickly become friends, only to fall victim to ruthless locals who drug them and steal their possessions, including money and passports.

Waking the next morning, the travellers ask for help from the villagers and Kiko offers to show them a way back home via his uncle's shack in the jungle.

Trudging through the undergrowth, the tourists fall foul of Kiko's uncle, mad medic Zamora. "Maybe there's a way for you to give back," he tells one of the travellers, poised to sink his scalpel into her taut midriff... and the bloodletting begins in earnest.

Verdict: Paradise Lost is mildly diverting, if only to mock the two-dimensional characters, who stroll blindly into danger.

Heavy breathing in the darkness, as characters gasp hungrily for oxygen in narrow air pockets, is supposed to unsettle us but poor editing and intentionally bad lighting dissipates the tension.

Performances fail to make much impact, except perhaps Desmond Askew's cheeky chap Finn, who claims he would lick the sweat off a monkey's unmentionables for a cold beer.