A Little Trip to Heaven

This is a comedy/thriller with Forest Whitaker taking the lead role as insurance agent Abe Holt who is in charge of investigating the death of the driver of a burnt-out car. There is an insurance policy worth $1 million at stake. The beneficiary of the insurance is the victim’s sister, Isolde, played by Julia Stiles, and once Abe Holt meets Isolde he finds it very difficult to maintain his professional attitude. As Abe digs deeper into what looks like a straight drinking and driving accident, he realises that the story is far from uncomplicated and the man who died quite horribly is not an innocent citizen.  He has a criminal record for fraud. As the movie goes on, Abe Holt uncovers dark secrets involving identity theft, forgery and murder, and suddenly Abe Holt finds that his own life might be in danger. 

The movie does not make use of over-the-top special effects, and the only effects used are the burning car and the rather gruesome charcoal corpse in the mortuary that shows just how crispy-fried the human body can become. 

Forest Whitaker is an excellent actor who has played some stunning roles in his career. In this movie he shows his talent once again and portrays his character with meticulous care. He brings all his considerable talent to the movie and forms the backbone of the acting talent in this movie. One of the mistakes that director Baltasar Kormakur makes is that the role does not take full advantage of Whitaker’s considerable talent. The role could have been fleshed out much more and then Forest Whitaker would have been able to give a riveting performance that would have kept viewers on the edge of their seats. 

Julia Stiles and Jeremy Renner both pull their weight in this movie and add much as the movie plot twists and turns and leads the viewer to think fast to keep ahead of the plot. What is interesting is that this movie does not follow so many other Hollywood productions where the audience is literally spoon fed; you have to think for yourself and try to figure out who the bad guys are.  

This movie has great potential as an excellent thriller, but the screenplay is the fly in the ointment. The twists and turns in the plot are too predictable and do not generate enough excitement, and this is the crucial missing ingredient. Many of the investigating scenes build up a good head of steam, but the climax goes flat as the revelations are far too predictable, and you ask yourself if this is it, where is the rest? Unfortunately, it is amateurish mishaps such as these that caused a movie that could have been great to become a tad mediocre and miss its chance to be a cinema hit.  Technically, the movie is good, and this was the director’s debut movie in America. Hopefully much is learned from the mistakes made in this film, as these kinds of quality movies are definitely what audiences would like to see more of than a lot of the mindless drivel which is dished up regularly.