Trapped in Paradise is a 1994 crime comedy film written and directed by George Gallo, and starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey.
Plot
It's Christmas time. Bill Firpo (Nicolas Cage) is a restaurant manager, who gets an unpleasant Christmas gift; his brothers Dave (Jon Lovitz) and Alvin (Dana Carvey) are paroled early due to overcrowding. Dave and Alvin ask Bill to go to Paradise, Pennsylvania to do a favor for a fellow inmate of theirs. Bill only agrees after getting involved in the robbery their brothers made. When they discover a bank that is light on security Bill proposes to rob it using guns Dave brought with him. The wife of the bank's presidents (Angela Paton) tells them that the Bank safe door is locked and the bank owner who has the key is having lunch in the restaurant nearby. Alvin and Bill charge into the restaurant and call in a robbery. They order all customers to come with Bill over to the Bank so that no one calls the police when they go. Mr. Anderson (Donald Moffat)opens the safe's door and Bill checks for motion sensors via a perfume. He steps over the sensors gets the money but while getting out of the safe he touches the sensors via one of the money bags. Bill and Dave rush out of the bank and get away with their crime, stealing $275,000 .
While trying to get out of town with their car a police car turns on the sirens and they try to evade getting caught. Because the car has no snow chains it drifts over a bridge and gets wrecked. The police officer makes sure their OK and offers them a ride. Due to the interstates being closed the officers takes them to his relatives to stay over for Christmas. After arriving at the house they find out it's the bank owners house finding Mr. and Mrs Anderson. The relatives however don't recognize them because they were covering their faces with ski masks while robbing the bank.
The inmate who gave Dave and Alvin the tip about the low security of this bank gets enraged that they robbed the bank and gets out of jail. He takes their mother (Florence Stanley) hostage and threatens to kill her unless they give him the stolen money.
Bill gets Bus tickets and while getting out the police asks him to open the bag he is carrying with him, which contains all of the money. Bill tricks the police through shooting rounds in the air making the crowd run around and gets away with his bag. They miss however their bus. They then try to get away via a boat. The boat is headed towards a waterfall and Alvin falls into the water. The town people pull Alvin out of water and rescue him through CPR.
Alvin steals a horse carriage from one of the police officers son. The police 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 hitchhike however the horse gets pulled into the water making them save it and go to a motel. 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, who is unaware that his mother is a hostage, proceeds to return the money and asks strangers for a ride to Paradise. By coincidence, he winds up getting a ride with the people who are holding his mother hostage. Bill shows them his mother's picture, whereupon the driver tries to shoot him so he can get the money Bill has in the bag. Bill jumps out of the car and escapes.
They try to get the money back into the bank but trigger the alarm through using the wrong safe door's key. They give then the money to a church with a letter requesting to return it to the town's people. Trying to get away the people who sold them the ski masks before the robbery recognize them and want the money for themselves, therefore go with them to the Anderson house finding the two inmates there holding guns and threatening to kill everyone if they don't get the money.
The police sees license plates in front of the Anderson house of a stolen car and order therefore the inmates to come out with their hands held up. While the inmates are busy figuring out what to do they get attacked where one looses his gun and the other gets shot. The police rush into the house and take everyone to the office. There the FBI 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 Collins (Mädchen Amick) the daughter of Anderson and Alvin and Dave return with their mother to New York.
Production
- Filming was done in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, Elora, Ontario, Canada and New York.
- Tripod was written into the movie as the Andersons' three-legged dog after director George Gallo noticed him and his owner watching filming.
External links
