Paradise City has no relation to the Guns N’ Roses song of the same name other than it’s arguably the worst Bruce Willis/John Travolta collaboration since Look Who’s Talking, which was released the same year as the GNR single (it doesn’t help either that both actors sport the same bald-headed, five o’ clock shadow look, plus an inexplicable puffy shirt for Travolta). I’d like to say you can’t go wrong with Willis, Travolta, Stephen Dorff, and Branscombe Richmond (I loves me some Bobby Sixkiller), but the fact of the matter is that you can, you will, and you have gone horribly wrong.
On the other hand, the actors’ only fault is poor judgment, either when it comes to choosing a script or pertaining the lifestyle choices that may have compelled them to accept any script that comes their way — and I doubt that this particular script would be anyone’s first choice. At some point Travolta’s character says “I love a good story. Especially if it’s about me.” This ain’t it, chief.
Bounty hunter Robbie Cole (Dorff) is looking for Koa Kahale, “a jumper on an auto theft rap.” Some random skank agrees to point Robbie in the right direction in exchange for the “six bullets” in Robbie’s gun (“Koa’s a good kid …I don’t wanna see him get hurt”). Turns out Koa is a stone’s throw away from the beach bar where Robbie’s having a drink. Even more conveniently, Koa is already caged up in a makeshift octagon (well, it’s more like a tetradecahedron, but you get the idea). Also on the scene to arrest Koa is Maui PD homicide detective Savannah Tui (Praya Lundberg).
Robbie is upset to discover that what he thought was a $1,000 bounty was a typo, and he’s only going to get a hundred bucks for Koa (“the kid is not exactly El Chapo”). After all, it’s not like the guy killed someone. But if he didn’t kill anyone, why did they send a homicide detective to pick him up? And the answer is, because the screenwriters couldn’t find a less contrived way to introduce Savannah (who tells Robbie he gives his profession “a bad name.” Lady, you have no idea; this is the guy who’s going to get caught in a crossfire carrying an empty revolver). Also on the scene is Ryan Swan (Blake Jenner), another bounty hunter — nay, make that second-generation bounty hunter; Blake happens to be Ian Swan’s (Willis) son, who has come to the island to find his father’s killer.
Ian (actually a stunt double who incidentally looks young enough to be Willis’s son) is apparently shot to death at the beginning of the film. Later on his alleged corpse will turn up with his face bitten off by “sharks” (did I just write the words ‘face’ and ‘off’? What a peculiar choice of words). Right before he’s gunned down, Ian calls Ryan and then clips his cellphone to his breast pocket in order to commit his last stand to video from a first-person perspective.
This cellphone is every bit as miracuolous as Tyrese Gibson’s in The System. Not only does it manage to unclip itself, dive down into the water, turn itself over, and record Ian’s sinking body from below, but also knows to return to the beach, hide itself so that a “dive team” which “combed this entire cove” misses it, and still be right there for Savannah to practically just stumble on it. As smartphones go, this one is certainly smarter than the filmmakers.
Travolta is Mr. Buckley, a shady real estate mogul who used to be known as drug lord Terrance Billford before he had a cartel surgeon or whatever give him a new face (but not Nicholas Cage’s, although latter-day Nic would truly be the icing on this crap cake). Ian (rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated, big fucking surprise) knows Buckley and Billford are one and the same because of some pics he has in his magic cellphone.
In these pictures, Buckley/Billford is looking straight at the camera, so he must have known he was being photographed. Moreover, the guy is supposed to be a ruthless, stone-cold killer, meaning that whoever took the pictures must have had his permission. Now, wouldn’t that sort of really defeat the purpose of surgically rearranging your face to avoid detection? Not to mention that the photos look like a deepfake, which they most certainly are. All things considered, if Axl watched this movie, he’d have second thoughts about wanting to go down to Paradise City.
90% of Everything is Crap 