Trapped in Paradise
Tags: bleak

Plot synopsis:
At Christmas time, New York restaurant manager Bill Firpo's (Nicolas Cage) brothers Dave (Jon Lovitz) and Alvin (Dana Carvey) are paroled early and placed in Bill's custody. Dave and Alvin ask Bill to take them to Paradise, Pennsylvania to do a favor for a fellow inmate of theirs. Bill refuses as his brothers are not allowed out of the state and he knows Dave's pathological tendencies. He only agrees after getting linked to a robbery his brothers made. When they discover Paradise's bank is light on security, Bill feels the urge to rob it if he had a gun. Fortunately, there are guns in the car Dave and Alvin borrowed. With Alvin driving a stolen car, Bill and Dave storm the bank in ski-masks. The bank president's wife (Angela Paton) tells them that the bank safe door is locked and the president, Mr. Clifford Anderson (Donald Moffat), is on lunch. While Dave stays in the bank, Alvin and Bill charge into the restaurant, taking Mr. Anderson and the restaurant patrons back to the bank. Bill and Dave gain access to the vault and soon rush out of the bank with $275,000, with Alvin driving the getaway car.
While trying to get out of town, Alvin gets them lost. A police car turns on the sirens and they try to evade getting caught. Because of slick roads, they drive over a bridge. The police officer does not see them crash and drives past the bridge, but another car stops and offers them a ride. Due to the interstates being closed, the man takes them to his relatives. Upon arriving at the house, they find out it is the house of the bank president Mr. Anderson. However, the relatives don't recognize them.
Vic Mazzucci (Vic Manni), the inmate who gave Dave and Alvin the tip about the low security of this bank, gets enraged that they robbed the bank and busts out of jail. He and his henchman, Caesar, takes their mother, Edna (Florence Stanley) hostage and threatens to kill her unless they give him the stolen money.
Bill gets bus tickets and while getting out, the FBI asks him to open the bag he is carrying with him, which contains all of the money. The bag is grabbed by Ed Dawson (John Ashton) and Clovis Minor (John Bergantine), two inept shopkeepers, made "deputies" by the local police chief. Bill tricks the FBI by shooting rounds from Ed's gun in the ground making the crowd run around and gets away with his bag. However, they miss their bus. They then try to get away via canoe. The canoe is headed towards a waterfall and Alvin falls into the water. A nearby family pulls Alvin out of water and saves him with CPR.
Alvin then steals a horse carriage from the police chief's son, Timmy. The feds chase the carriage but after they drive into the forest the police cars were unable to continue the chase. They ditch the horse carriage and decide to hitchhike. However, the horse, Merlin, and carriage get pulled into the water making the brothers save him and go to a truck stop instead. There, Bill and Alvin decide to return the money to the bank while Dave refuses, knowing that their mother would be killed if they do so (Bill and Alvin are unaware of this). Alvin, then, reveals to Bill he is not wanted in New York and that they scammed him. Upset, Bill leaves his two brothers, then heads off to return the money and asks strangers for a ride to Paradise. By coincidence, he winds up getting a ride with Vic and Caesar, who are holding his mother hostage in the trunk. Bill shows them his mother's picture, whereupon Vic tries to shoot him so he can get the money Bill has in the bag. Bill jumps out of the car and escapes, rescued by Dave, Alvin and Merlin.
They try to get the money back into the bank but trigger the alarm. They then give the money to a church with a letter requesting to return it to the town's people. Trying to get away, Ed and Clovis, who had sold the Firpoes the ski masks before the robbery, recognize them and want the money for themselves. Ed and Clovis grab the brothers and take them to the Anderson house, while followed by the police. Vic and Caesar are holding the Andersons hostage, along with Timmy, Edna and Sarah (Mädchen Amick), Vic's daughter and a tenant of the family. Upon entering, Ed gets knocked out, while Clovis and the Firpoes are also taken hostage.
The police sees the license plates in front of the Anderson house of a stolen car and therefore order Vic and Caesar to come out with their hands held up. While the inmates are busy figuring out what to do, they get attacked by Timmy who immobilizes Caesar and shoots Vic. The police rush into the house and take everyone to the office. There, FBI agent Shaddus Peyser (Richard Jenkins) tries to figure out what happened and because the town's people hide what they know about Bill, Alvin, and Dave and the church pastor returns the money to the police, they release them. Bill stays in Paradise to be with Sarah, while Alvin and Dave return with their mother to New York.

Review: This movie is quite funny, you don't have to be a fan of Dana carvey or anything too.
It was a good story and has funny plots throughout the movie as well.
Jon Lovitz, Nicholas Cage, and Dana Carvey, are all hilarious in this flick and also just did a great job acting.
It is one of those "feel good" movies -- a great Christmas-time flick -- and I think belongs aside classic greats such as "A Christmas Story" and "It's A Wonderful Life".
Cage, Lovitz, and Carvey are all hilarious.
This movie is supposed to be a comedy, but at the end it turns out to be a very heart-warming story.
A Great Movie about Small Town America at Christmas Time.
This movie was not made to dazzle people or make them stand back and go "wow that was an awesome scene." Trapped in Paradise is about the healing powers of a small town at Christmas.
Nicholas Cage, John Lovitt, and Dana Carvey's characters are believable, even if they are not dynamic.
Having Cage, Lovitz and Carvey in the same movie is hilarious.
Watching the movie just to see Dana in this role is worth it all by itself.
I just can't understand why this movie has such a low rating, its a good Christmas movie, and Dana Carvey is hilarious.
Overall, it has a very good cast, with him, Jon Lovitz and Nick Cage.
A great good feel funny movie!!.
Nicolas Cage plays the great straight guy while his 2 brothers played by Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey supply the comedy value, in this hugely entertaining and funny movie.
I think Cage is great in this film, like in 'Peggy Sue Got Married', 'Family Man' and 'It Could Happen to You' he plays a lovable character that is full of emotion which you just can't imagine anyone else playing.
There's also a great moment in the film where he looses his temper and he almost transforms into Castor Troy from Face/Off. If you're a fan of Nicolas Cage and not just the action stuff, you should see this movie and it's even better at Christmas time..
Everyone in this movie plays their parts perfectly, and all their expressions are so hilarious and true to form, such as "what...what...what...what..." from Jenkins, and Cages' 'gagging' motion at being told the bank has been robbed, and also Carvey's "Oh my God...GUNS!".
Carvey, Lovitz and Cage have great chemistry as brothers.
Nick Cage is actually the level-headed brother who is more like his siblings than he cares to admit.And for one of the reviewers looking for this movie on DVD try the website www.half.com.
The thing to remember about films like Trapped and ConAir is that they are fictitious, and the whole point of making movies is to suspend belief and tell a story.
I liked the cast with three very diverse lead characters played by macho Nicholas Cage, fatso Jon Lovitz and wimpy Dana Carvey.
This premise about crooks being unable to get out of town due to various weird situations, in here it's mainly a snowstorm.If you want a better movie about being trapped somewhere and trying to escape with the loot, watch Bill Murray, Geena Davis and Randy Quaid in "Quick Change." That's a heckuva lot funnier film..
Although I haven't seen it in a while, what I remember of Trapped in Paradise was a whole lot of laughs.
This is a charming little caper movie with quite a bit of slapstick and heart, and would be near-nigh perfect if it weren't for one annoying thing!
He was one of the highlights of the show from '86 to '93, with memorable characters like The Church Lady, Hans of Hans and Franz, George Bush, Ross Perot, John McLaughlin and many others, not the least of which was Garth from the Wayne's World sketches with Mike Myers they turned into a successful couple of funny movies.
Check out just about any other Dana Carvey movie, such as the wretched Master of Disguise, and you'll find somebody who overacts with silly, unreal voices.
But Carvey flat out fails here, and brings the movie down.
If I were Nicolas Cage, the first time I heard that silly voice coming out of Carvey, I would have done one of those buggy eyed freak outs that Simon Helberg of Big Bang Theory parodies so well, and would have said, "What...the hell...is THAT!
I know he's not the best actor, but this is one of Nicolas Cage's best movies (certainly as far as COMEDY goes, at least).
Absolutely moronic film starring Nicolas Cage, with 2 absolutely stupid brothers who are constantly in trouble with the law and have just been released from prison.By some fluke of the imagination, Cage becomes involved with the brothers (Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey) in a bank robbery.The brothers, realizing they have done wrong, try to return the money to the local church.Some laughs are provided by their mother, played by the late Florence Stanley.The jokes, for the most part, are as obnoxious as the film itself.
The best part is the snowstorm that the town of Paradise, Pa. undergoes during this film.There are the usual chase scenes with the bad guys and the police, unfortunately, are made to look very foolish here.Actually, this film is really from Hades.
However his brothers Dave (Jon Lovitz) and kleptomaniac Alvin (Dana Carvey) get early parole due to overcrowding.
They keep failing to get away while the people in town are all so very nice.Dana Carvey has that annoying voice and face.
There are only two things that rise slightly above category, but these are not enough to change my vote: Dana Carvey and his slick and funny pickpocketing and Florence Stanley is funny  I liked her a lot.
Nicolas Cage and Jon Lovitz do their characters well, even if very predictably, but they do them as if they weren't even filming the scenes together.
Dana Carvey singlehandedly saves several scenes, yet he spends most of the movie doing an annoying and completely useless imitation of Mickey Rourke playing the town idiot.
With the exception of a few of the minor players (particularly Florence Stanley as Ma Firpo), one has to wonder if anybody in this movie, from director to cast to crew, was actually making any significant effort or just trying to get something into the theaters in time for Christmas..
Comedies like this predictable Christmas movie are often overlooked or passed over.
It should be watched at Christmastime and on Mother's Day. I had big delayed reaction to "Trapped In Paradise".
The problem I had the other times was, of course, Dana Carvey.
Florence Stanley gives Cage, Lovitz and Carvey a run for their money.
Is constant Rourke impersonation is almost as good as Norm McDonald's Burt Reynolds.Then again, if you aren't familiar with Rourke, Carvey may just be annoying.Either way, the movie is hysterical and back when Cage found an outlet for all his over-acting abilities...you know, comedies.It's a great comedy that time, unfortunately, swept under the rug.
One that should be remembered but like so many other comedies, was taken as disposable fun.Go back, revisit it, watch it again, you won't be disappointed..
What's the odds to watch a relatively unknown Christmas comedy from a director I have never heard of as there are tons of much more appealing options there, yet fate guides me to watch this one, 20 years ago, Nicholas Cage, John Lovitz and Dana Carvey star as three brothers in TRAPPED IN PARADISE, here, Paradise refers to a small town where (almost) everyone is extremely nice and bonhomie and hospitality abound.
But Firpo brothers are no law-abiding citizens, Dave (Lovitz) is an inveterate liar and Alvin (Carvey) is a half-wit kleptomaniac, they merely are put on probation for Christmas since the jail-house is fully-packed, Dave tricks Bill (Cage), their youngest brother to escape with them to Paradise under the pretense of looking for a fellow prisoner's daughter Sarah (Amick).
When they arrive the town, impossible to resist the temptation, they take advantage of the lousy security measures in the bank, and rob the dead presidents on Christmas Eve. But due to all sorts of accidental mishaps, they end up to stay at the bank manager's home for dinner, affected by a string of generous treatments from the townsfolk, they decide to return the loot, however, Sarah's father is also looking after the money, and holds three brothers' mom as the hostage (a wonderful Florence Stanley with a vicious tongue), meanwhile, Agent Shaddus Peyser (Jenkins) and two police deputies are tailing them as well, but no harm will ensure because it is a perfect whole-family fare for the holiday spirit.
Performance wise, Dana Carvey is surprisingly acceptable as a simpleton with a golden heart, many improvised squabbles between Cage and Lovitz are generically funny, although nothing new can be extracted from this touchy-feely concept of a prodigal who returns is more precious than gold, and the laughters are cheap, one merely cannot be cross with its benign and often naive scenario and it is an enjoyable 111 minutes with no harm done, plus if you are hooked by the cast, you might check it out..
George Gallo wrote and directed this ridiculous, braying, foul-mouthed comedy (with a Christmas theme!) about three brothers who rob a bank in Paradise--a quaint, sweet-natured Pennsylvania town--and come to regret their actions; meanwhile, two slow-witted deputies are on their trail.
As Cage's brothers-in-crime, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey are a nightmarish twosome.
All these so called critics who are just your classical low-self esteem nerds from high school who watch way too many movies and take life way too seriously are just WRONG.
This movie is great, I went to college in a small town and I know most people out there don't think places like "paradise" still exist, but they do.
I happen to like Nicolas Cage as an actor.
Watching the interactions of the three characters Cage, Lovitz, and Carvey was interesting.
The only interesting thing was watching Nicholas Cage eat scenery while John Lovitz underplayed his part.
Madchen Amick, Cage's romantic interest, demonstrated little talent.The movie should have had at least half an hour cut from it.
All I can imagine is that Cage owed George Gallo (writer/director) a favor, and Lovitz and Carey wanted the chance to work with him.Bottom line - don't waste your time..
This was the first movie I ever rented and didn't watch all the way through.
I usually enjoy Dana and John on Saturday Night Live, and Nic Cage is one of my favorite actors (even though he has gone on and starred in a few losers, including "Raising Arizona").
All I can say is that this movie started out not funny, moved on to stupid, and it didn't seem like it would ever get better..
If you want an experience that could be compared to watching this movie, I have a suggestion: Hang your tongue out of your mouth, and allow it to dry.
Just like you can hang your brain out to dry by watching this movie.
As you tire of a pathetic attempt at a heart warming christmas story of bad guys gone good, you can hurl candies you snuck into the movie at your friends.
This Movie Was SO Bad I could not watch more than 20 minutes.
I really like nearly all of Nic Cage's films, and enjoy Dana Carvey and John Lovitz also.
Nicholas Cage, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey are "Trapped in Paradise" in this 1994 film also starring Madchen Amick, Donald Moffat and Florence Stanley.
Cage plays Bill Firpo, a man desperately trying to distance himself from his jailbird brothers Dave and Alvin (Lovitz and Carvey) and take the high road; unfortunately, overcrowding in the prisons causes the boys to be released early.
It's too good to pass up, so the three head for Paradise, Pennsylvania to rob the bank, only to find that once they have, they can't get out of town due to the overwhelming hospitality of the townspeople.This film is very funny, and I admit to loving Nicholas Cage in comedy.
As he puts it, "In the Firpo family, the man with half a brain is king." Florence Stanley is a riot as the boys' mother and is given some great lines like, "You guys are dumber than a box of hair." Lovitz and Carvey are goofy; Carvey's Alvin is a kleptomaniac who doesn't seem completely there, and Lovitz' Dave is a conniver with a mind that goes right to criminal intent at all times.
But Cage and Lovitz can do a lot better.
Recently released convicts Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey talk their brother (Nicolas Cage) into robbing a small bank in a small community that has lots of money.
A film that starts out funny and then turns sappy as the brothers just cannot seem to get out of town due to a Christmas snow storm.
Not that Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey aren't ordinarily funny, by all means, no.
Yes, I laughed out loud several times, and liked the madcap interaction between Cage, Lovitz and Carvey.
She said that we were going to watch a movie that had nothing but laughs in it.
Jon Lovitz, who is funny at times, also had a leading role.
I guess I was still in denial that both Nic Cage and Dana Carvey could accept roles in a movie that bad.
His brothers Dave (Jon Lovitz) and Alvin (Dana Carvey) are paroled early due to overcrowding and placed in Bill's custody.This film has a bad reputation.
Jon Lovitz has claimed the cast hated making the picture, and the director (George Gallo) was so inept that Nicolas Cage had to step in for much of the picture.
As wonderful as Madchen Amick is, and as great as it is to see her in more things, there was no reason to make her the film's romantic interest.
This the only Christmas movie that i watch constantly year after year.I don't know why the low grade.My guess is that people are not using the film properly,and by "properly" i mean: It's a frickin' Christmas flick,don't watch it in July,or after a hard days work in September or in the spring vacation.I mean,what else do you need?it's got great comedy,romance,family closeness and lots of snow,all set in a very easy going small town with uncomplicated inhabitants...the kind of small town in witch we all dream to live.Jon Lovitz,Dana Carvey and Cage are all playing their natural characters without overacting crap or trying to outshine one another.In my opinion this is a slam-dunk Christmas classic and it's to bad for whoever doesn't put it on it's Holidays playlist..
When you put people like Saturday Night Live's Dana Carvey and John Lovitz on the screen together, you know there's going to be a few good laughs.
Cage stars as the oddball while Lovitz and Carvey star as small time crooks.
They are new in town looking for someone none of them know, however when they walk into the bank to find this 'Sarah' person, they discover that it's going to be an easy pick, especially on Christmas Eve. They get the money and they're out.
With Nicolas Cage portraying 'the smart and good brother' doing everything he can to keep himself on the straight and narrow and also taking on the older brother mantle of trying to keep his younger brothers recently paroled for overcrowding and released to Cage's custody, the gleefully ne'er-do-well brothers portrayed by Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey, it is Cage's duty to keep these two on the straight and narrow as well.
The purpose of the trip is really to rob a small town bank which, on a particular day, holds a Fort Knox like sum of cash.And so the story is set and while many people might guess the general path the film takes, it is a joyful and hilarious ride through their travails and eventual redemption in a town called Paradise.
but this is still a very funny movie despite many of the negative reviews and the sub 6 star rating..
I just watched Trapped in Paradise for the first time today, and I laughed hysterically.
Nicholas Cage is great, and I've seen Dana Carvey and John Lovitz perform on SNL before.
IE, at the end Dana Carvey takes the guy's hat and puts it on his brother's head.
It just makes it that much more funny to say it's good from beginning to end.
The few laughs (more like chuckles actually) I did emit were from lines delivered by Richard Jenkins, a fed chasing the three lead characters, and Florence Stanley, the trio's mother.
I think many would like this movie for at least three reasons.1.
With Cage, Lovitz and Carvey - how could it not be?2.It's not just "a movie set at Christmas," it really is a Christmas movie!
see if you don't agree.* My test as to whether it's really "a Christmas movie"": would the story work as well if set at any other time of year?
It wasn't the best of movies, but I did find that parts of it were funny.
This movie is about two brothers who trick the third to go to a small town and rob a bank that is really easy to rob.
Unfortunately they cannot get out of the town and end up giving all of the money back because they see the hearts behind the people.As I said, the movie isn't that great, but I do think that some people really watch too many movies and be a bit too critical about them.
Unfortunately, later in the film it does start to lag in regards to the laughs, but I still think Dana Carvey's character is pretty cool - and more realistic as a kleptomaniac - so much as there is no order in what he steals, he simply steals because he can.