Review of A Little Trip to Heaven (2005) by Al D — 24 May 2010

[size=2]If you decide to take a little trip down to the movie rental store you can avoid renting [i]A LITTLE TRIP TO HEAVEN[/i]. The following is all the heavenly glimpse you should need.

[i]A LITTLE TRIP TO HEAVEN [/i]was directed by Baltasar Kormakur and is headlined by Forest Whitaker. Julia Stiles, Peter Coyote, and Jeremy Renner also add their acting talents to the story of an insurance investigator trying to figure out whether or not a dead body in a burned out car belongs to the con-man it was meant to look like for the million dollar payout.

[/size][size=2]Forest Whitaker is usually a decent actor, but for some reason they decided his character should have a strong Irish accent? I could not understand a single word the man mumbled and cannot fathom why they would make the character this way and hinder the viewing audience. The film is set in America and everyone else speaks understandably, but I had to turn on the subtitles feature to understand Mr. Whitaker. The subtitles unfortunately are not the kind to scroll pleasantly across the bottom of the screen though, and flash across the faces of the actors a lot of the time.

A lot of the film takes place at night in the beginning and the scenes were an eyesore if you could see past the subtitles. However as the film progressed the environments became visually stunning. The turbulent skies, above the fields right before a snow were especially breathtaking. When it does eventually snow in the film it is a heavy dose of the white stuff that covers the ground and the beauty of that is ruined in the ?day after? scene where the snow has magically been melted away by rain in one night. Seriously, a lot of snow and poof: it vanished.

The vanishing snow is not the only unrealistic stretch taken in the film. The ?villain? of the plot seems to do outrageous and impossible stunts to try and claim insurance money. As if driving his car with him still in it straight into a cement wall isn?t enough (he magically survives because he has a seat belt and his passenger does not), he also lets a semi smash his car off of a cliff and into the ocean, with his sister and himself diving out of the vehicle in mid air and surviving. Upon survival they swim up on to the beach and purposefully break his leg with a pipe to claim some cash. Isn?t that just a bit too elaborate and just utterly stupid to even buy as Hollywood entertainment? This wasn?t meant to be [i]THE TRANSPORTER[/i], this was a moody little thriller.

The ending to the movie is equally poor and leaves you angry only for having wasted your time with such a low quality film experience.

[i]A LITTLE TRIP TO HEAVEN [/i]is not a recommended trip at all.

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