MovieChat Forums > Return to Paradise (1998) Discussion > Pushy Reporter *SPOILERS*

Pushy Reporter SPOILERS

posted 19 years ago by kayeanna77
9 replies | jump to latest

First, I just want to say that this movie was amazing with great performances all around. Now, I'd like to say that although it is horrible and just unfathomable to most of us in the U.S. to be put to death for drug possession (or trafficking, like they were accused), that's not the travesty I see here. In my opinion, it was the stupid reporter played by Jada Pinkett-Smith that botched the whole thing and sealed Phoenix's death sentence. As Anne Heche is standing at the window and sees the reporters coming, my stomach just began twisting into knots and I honestly wanted to stop watching. I kept thinking, "Oh great, another time that the US is gonna put their noses where it shouldn't be and make things worse." And, viola, it happened! If not for Smith's unrelenting attitude and America's insatiable need for the next big story that makes everyone feel so much better about being an American, instead of being in some third world country, the death at the end may have been avoided. It just sickens me to see this obvious lack of humanity and carelessness, not on the part of the Malaysian government (sure, we believe a death sentence for having drugs is horrible, but that's THEIR law), but on the part of what the "news" here in the states has been reduced to. It's no longer about informing the people, it's about getting the scoop before the others and winning accolades for selling someone else down the river!

Any thoughts?

Where're you guys? I'm at the fire, man!

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] kayeanna77 19 years ago

What the hell are you talking about, Jackass?! Your post has NOTHING to do with mine, so I suggest you troll around in someone else's unless you have something constructive to say!

HEAD! PANTS! NOW!

[–] emilydickinson-1 18 years ago

Ignore the moron.

Anyway, I was thinking the same thing. There's this big talk show in France and 4 years ago the presenter started reporting regularly on a French guy doing a life sentence in Bali for possession (haschich, too.) At first I was moved and happy that he was supporting the guy, campaigning for his release and raising funds for his defence. I remember thinking, cool, at least he won't rot in a cell, forgotten by all, à la Lewis.
Then I started hearing all the comments he was also making about the "stupid judiciary system in Bali" and all his juvenile calls to legalise this and that. I finally realized he was endangering this guy, like a real life Jada Pinkett-Smith.
Anyway, he stopped talking about it after a while and the guy is still in jail.

[–] elmuhfuh 18 years ago

that judge told the lawyer, that while americans criticize their harsh penalties on drugs, that there streets were cleaner. if your way is the right way, you dont have to make examples of individual people. do judges make decisions based on an offense on the other side of the planet made by the press? i cannot answer that question, but i would like to think it wouldnt be this way. so the blame for me wasnt on the reporter in this movie, rather the sensitive judge who felt the need to defend their ways. this movie teaches a lesson though, that we make sure we are not making a situation worse when we think we are helping.

[–] EdwardHauPepeluTivrusky 18 years ago

I agree. The judge's verdict just totally blew my mind. I don't think I ever cried that much during a movie.... *sniffle*

[–] rodvince 18 years ago

That's one reason why media should be regulated. The hell with press freedom.

[–] Amry0217 18 years ago

Get the news at all costs. Get a story no matter how much it may hurt someone. A while back after a bad acccident west of town, a truck driver was trapped in the cab of his truck for hours. The camera was there when rescue workers finally got him out. Rigor mortis had stiffened his limbs so he stayed flexed at his hips and knees as they drug him out. And they showed it on the 5:00 news that night!!
I worked on a college newspaper for a semester. After that semester, I swore "no more." The pressure to "submit an article" is incredible as in, you don't have anything for that issue, you get a failing grade. Maybe some people like that pressure - I wanted no more part of it.

==============================
They lift me clear to the sky - You know they taught me to fly -
bah not in this case

[–] sjones-6 18 years ago

Kayeanna, I respect your pain, and your thoughts -- and the rest of you (except for the thimble-headed gherkin, whom we all ought to pity as we disiss him).

I was terribly moved by this morality play, and the inward look it forced upon me. I can tell you two things; the first is a question you didn't ask. (1) Like Vince Vaughan, I would have had to go back and stand up. And like Vince said, it's not because I'm particularly courageous. I'm just "wired" not to do otherwise, any more than I'm wired to molest a child. There are things we must do, and must not do, in order to look at ourselves in the mirror when we shave. If Joaquin had been hanged with the complicity of my cowardice, my life would have been over. I could not have raised my head to anyone, nor ever sought a "seat by the fire" along with other humans. 'Nuff said.

(2) As far as the reporter goes, who was warned that she would kill Joaquin, and who went ahead and purposefully sought her selfish gain in indifference to the prisoner's life ----- I'm afraid I could not also not continue to live knowing consequences had not been applied to that act. I believe in a fundamental law of "tooth and claw" -- that Everybody Pays. Had I been Joaquin's sister, or Vince who came back to pay with years of his life, I'm afraid I would have had to demand the life of the reporter in consequence of the choice she had knowingly made.

I would have tried to be in church singing hyns when it happened (I would have had no noble wish to advertise my consequation of her behavior), but nonetheless her life would have been required. I'm afraid that's the way I am in real life -- I have looked into the blackness of my heart and seen that I have it within me to kill another -- not murder, I hope, but to kill. Delayed defense of another, if we need to rationalize. My attitude is exactly the same as Creasy's attitude in "Man on Fire" ---- forgiveness is a matter between the transgressor and God, it would be my job to arrange the meeting.

Stark, but true. There are acts which cry out for vengeance on this earth, i.e. before someone faces God in the next life. I believe those punishable acts in the "here and now" are those which are likely repeatable, perhaps costing other innocents things they should not have to pay. Few folks dispute tht the State has the right to exact such vengeance, I guess I'm more in the minority which believes that we are not so civilized with all our laws that we can afford to eschew personal justice when the law of man miscarries.

Everybody Pays.

Yukon

[–] jedoughe 18 years ago

Obviously Pinkett's reporter character is tailored in the film to be the villain, so congrats on getting to the bottom of that one.

I don't really see why a culture difference excuses some parties while others are labeled responsible for the former party's actions. In the film the Malaysian judicial system is the one who CHOSE to kill him as well as the one who KILLED him. This wasnot done based on their own laws. With shared responsibility for the drugs technical neither individual would qualify as a dealer. So, again, in the film, the Judge sentenced someone to death without proper cause under his own law. The assertion then is that the best way to keep their horribly inhumane and murderous judicial system in check is by NOT reporting to the world their actions? Of course, the article was filled with half-truths to seal the deal on who the object(s) of scorn in the film are.

Keep in mind though that this only a film, so any argument really only exists in the context of the film. Afterall, it is rather ludicrous that the Malaysian judicial system is represented as extremely structured and articulate, while at the same time being so malicious and well...unjudicial--making life and death court decisions on a whim.

I thought it was really a shame that the film's conclusion was based on so many self-made constructs (the deus ex machina, if you will), when everything leading up to it was so well restrained and so eloquently expressed the personal moral battle of the characters. But thus is the unfortunate characteristic of a film which lures you in with skillful craftsmanship to hammer a political nail in your head at the end.