In the not-so-distant future, recidivist criminals and terrorists are being dropped onto a deserted island and forgotten by society at large. Once the convicts parachute into this no-man's-land, it's every creep for himself. The brainchild of one Senator Paradiso (Laurence Haddon), this
escape-proof penal colony houses the world's scurviest thieves and killers, including Eric (Peter Kowanko), who is shown assisting in the bombing of a federal building at the start of CAGED IN PARADISO. Apprehended as a member of the Red Hand Brigade, the terrorist group who claimed responsibility
for the bombing (in which 60 people were killed), Eric is sentenced to Paradiso Island, which is hemmed in by shark-infested waters and guarded by a deadly laser beam two miles from shore. Vowing to follow her man to the ends of the earth, ingenuous Mexican immigrant Eva (FAME's Irene Cara, whose
accent here is hard to place, originating somewhere north of Jamaica and south of Brooklyn) points out that the law allows spouses to accompany their felonious mates to the island hellhole, although she's apparently the first soul to take advantage of this dubious privilege. After parachuting onto
Paradiso, anti-imperialist Eric gets separated from Eva. She is nearly raped by some inmates, but rescued by Queenie (Paula Bond), the lesbian leader of the local Amazons, who can't believe Eva's naivete. The island is divided into various contingents, including some old bikers, a group of
cannibals, a black-power faction headed by Josh (Ji-Tu Cumbuka), and Queenie's tribal-bead-wearing, feminist-consciousness-raising crew, who teach Eva archery and how to do some nifty body-painting. The film cuts back and forth between Eva's indoctrination and Eric's ongoing struggle to survive;
finally, Eric is befriended by kindly peasant Jocelito (Luis Vera), a lifelong resident of the island-turned-penitentiary who nurses Eric back to health in his cabin. When Eric manages a reunion with his wife, he makes anti-gay remarks about her girl friends and persuades her to leave the security
of the tribe. The sexist pig then foolishly goes off to play manly food-hunter, leaving Eva alone to fend for herself against an attack by two men--which she does, killing the brutes. Later--after not-so-nice political activist Eric has cruelly forced old Jocelito out of his cabin in order to move
in with Eva--Helmut (Wolf Muser), head of the Red Hand Brigade, arrives with his convict troops and insists that Eric join in his efforts to "civilize" the island. Helmut's attempts at improving life on Paradiso include having his henchman challenge black-power leader Josh to a fair fight, then
stabbing him when his back is turned. Realizing that this bunch of macho pigs plans to attack the lovely Amazons and sexually subjugate them, Eva decides she wants no part of hubby's activities and warns her pals by sounding a conch shell given to her by the mystical Jocelito, enabling the women
to plan for the attack. Disillusioned with her man, Eva decides to end her life by sailing into the laser, but the monitoring officer identifies her by computer and allows the Coast Guard to pick her up. Her Paradiso playmates believe that the big beam got her, however.
Will Eva sail off to write a best-seller about prison conditions when she returns to America? Most viewers won't bother to ask, but will merely bid her good riddance. After a taut opening sequence, CAGED IN PARADISO rapidly disintegrates. Admittedly, the central premise is no more ludicrous than
that of the infinitely superior action fantasy ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (in which all of Manhattan is turned into a penal colony), but that film offered rapid pacing and tongue-in-cheek delivery. CAGED IN PARADISO, by contrast, is an almost languorous action film--a contradiction in terms--that is
further marred by its uniformly abysmal acting. (Cara must be singled out for special censure, however; her accent is so slippery, she practically gives a world tour of dialects.) Since the film takes itself seriously, it can only be appreciated as a gut-wrenching action movie, which it clearly is
not, or as unintentional camp. Unfortunately, CAGED IN PARADISO isn't outrageous enough to be an entertainingly bad movie. It's worthless, all right, but in an uninvolving, enervated way.
Even if one overlooks the central implausibility of Eva's deciding to accompany her husband to Paradiso, the film suffers from technical sloppiness and impoverished scripting throughout. The ridiculous structuring of the first half, in which the filmmakers cut back and forth between Eva's athletic
training and Eric's attempts to stay alive, serves no function other than to pad this dull prison movie out to feature length. The direction is hack work and the editing lackadaisical; worse, the film completely lacks any sense of menace. No one on Paradiso seems like a killer--the cast behaves
more as if they were on a wilderness weekend that features encounter group therapy and psychological prison games. Bond, clad in her native togs, looks like a third-place finisher in a Josephine Baker lookalike contest, while the male cutthroats seem about as tough as Captain Hook's merry men.
Unless you're an inveterate fan of babes-behind-bars films or an aficionado of truly bad movies, avoid CAGED IN PARADISO. Viewing it is a sentence to boredom in itself. (Violence, nudity, profanity, sexual situations.) leave a comment
