A Stranger in Paradise (2013) Directed by Corrado Boccia

Low budget, poor writing, bad acting, weak directing. Just four of the many different reasons why this movie is an absolutely terrible one to watch!

I really don't know what is worse; the writing, the directing, the acting. But it's an absolute fact that this movie in no way ever is a pleasant or engaging one to follow. There is never a good flow to things and the movie its story is more confusing than entertaining really.

After a while I don't even know anymore who are supposed to be the good and bad buys in this and who is after who and more importantly; why? The only thing worse and more annoying than underwritten movies are overwritten movies, that are filled with needless distractions and characters, all in an attempt to make things seem clever, surprising and complicated. But instead of ever working out as anything clever, surprising or complicated, things feel messy and uninvolving instead. That's really a big problem for this movie as well.

It also really isn't very original anymore for a Hollywood-style thriller/action movie to be set in an Asian country, in this case Thailand. As a matter of fact, it's a trend I'm starting to be annoyed by. It's not because of the settings or anything but the simple fact that all of these movies are always doing the same things. It always involves corruption and some form of crime syndicate and the wealthy and successful western characters, in the process of dodging bullets and surviving car chases, often find it in their kind hearts to help out the poor and deprived locals. I really don't get why countries such as Thailand keeps allowing these type of 'entertaining' movies to be made and shot on their soil, while all they basically do is put their country (crime, danger, corruption and poverty is everywhere according to the movie) and its native inhabitants into a bad light.

Even though the story is complicated and messy, it still is obvious as well that in its core it's really nothing but an extremely formulaic one. Nothing surprising or exceptional is ever happening, which really ruins all of the movie its tension. Even the action can't spice things up. Problem is that it's all something incredibly random but another problem with it as well is that everything looks to planned out and orchestrated, like some sort of bad and cheap '80's B-action movie.

Another annoying thing about the movie is Colin Egglesfield's performance. He's like a poor man's Tom Cruise and he isn't even trying to hide that he wants to look, sound and act like Tom Cruise in this movie. What is this, a parody? It's ridicules to watch really. Not saying that he's a bad actor, I mean, he definitely seems to have potential and plenty of charisma but his performance in this particular movie just isn't much good really but granted that that of course also was mostly due to the poor script and weak directing of the movie.

This really never is a pleasant movie to watch in any way, which is the direct result of all of the movie its many problems. There is absolutely no reason for you to ever go watch this movie.

3/10

Watch trailer