The Christmas Movie Challenge: Trapped in Paradise (1994)

One man, 52 Christmas movies, one must be watched every week or the challenge is lost. Welcome to The Christmas Movie Challenge.

The beauty (or curse) of moving house is you inevitably encounter long forgotten items. In a random box I don’t remember packing was a collection of VHS tapes. I thought the highlight of this mixed box of items was my ex-rental VHS of The Outsiders, but lurking underneath it was a copy of Nicolas Cage Christmassy comedy Trapped in Paradise.

Surely this was some form of a sign from the all knowing movie gods, or perhaps the box was packed by Santa himself and he wanted me to watch this movie again, well who am I to argue with Santa.

After a brief and nostalgic half hour setting up my old and hardly used Video Cassette player, I dusted the tape off and for the first time since 2007 I watched a Video.

The movie itself is a soft and light hearted family movie, Cage stars as Bill Firpo a man who despite his best efforts to stay out of trouble he keeps getting dragged into petty crime by his two brothers Dave (Jon Lovitz) and kleptomaniac Alvin (Dana Carvey). Granted they make for the least convincing brothers in cinematic history, but they all bounce off each other nicely so you can look passed the odd casting choices.

The brother’s latest crime spree leads them to rob a bank in the nicest town on earth, and they desperately try to get out of town before a snow storm traps them all.

Over the course of the next few days, Bill, Dave and Alvin all fall for the charms of the town and the locals who are so nice you half expect them to be a murderous cult or it’s a dream.

So much about the movie is nice, it’s an inoffensive middle of the road movie that pushes no boundaries but is happy to just be a solid bit of Christmas comedy fluff.

As my video player had not been used in 5 years, it made quite a few strange sounds during the 110 minutes. It shrieked like a child that’s caught their hand in a kitchen door, it eeeked like a mouse and I even had to use tracking, TRACKING!

I cried a nostalgic tear for my well worn VCR, the movies I discovered on the machine and the countless times the rewinding function would fail to work. I’m sure my trusty VCR was overjoyed to be used once again, and especially so as it was a Christmas Movie even if it is May.

Until next time