John Thoma Movies
- 1996
- NR
- Add Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills to QueueAdd Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills to top of Queue
Following their acclaimed documentary about a controversial death in a small town, Brother's Keeper, filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, explore another criminal case with even more complex strands. When the mutilated corpses of three eight-year-old boys are found near a wooded stream in West Memphis, AR, suspicion falls on a trio of young men, Jessie Miskelly Jr., Jason Baldwin, and Damian Wayne Echols. Stories that the men listened to hard rock music and fashioned themselves satanists fueled speculation of their involvement in the crime. Unlike Brother's Keeper, in which the citizens of the upstate New York town rallied to protect one of its own, an elderly man accused of killing one of his siblings, Paradise Lost portrays West Memphis as split on the question of guilt. Berlinger and Sinofsky offer equal time to both sides, but as this long and absorbing film rolls on, it becomes clear that they're skeptical of the prosecution's case, especially because it rests so heavily on an confession extracted from the mentally challenged Miskelly, and suspicious of the stepfather of one of the victims, who seems to relish the spotlight a bit too much. Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, a sequel, follows the case deeper into the appeals process. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has a code of honor which he will not violate, even when his life depends on it. Paradoxically, his code of honor gives him the backbone to survive as a military special forces operative when he is sent on a covert mission to rescue another group which was sent in to assist some nefarious U.S. government plan in a Latin American country. Once there, he encounters an old army buddy (Carl Weathers) who has gotten too deep in the CIA's good graces for Dutch's comfort. When he and his team go into the jungle to rescue the others, they get involved in a pitched battle with local guerillas, but they are more than capable of besting these vicious fighters. However, not long after that, they encounter signs that the equally capable men they were sent to rescue were all killed unawares and in an unusually gruesome fashion. Given their training, it should have been impossible for anyone to best all of these commando warriors. Soon, the men from Dutch's own team get picked off one by one, as they grow aware that they are up against something uncanny, not of this world, something that is hunting them for sport. Why? Because their skills make them worthy opponents for the perfectly camouflaged Predator. This carefully paced action movie was given poor reviews by many movie critics, but was sufficiently satisfying for its (largely male) audiences that a successful sequel (Predator 2) was released in 1990. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, (more)
