While The Grinch is the most famous example, from Hans Gruber to Willie Soke each year we return to stories of characters trying to steal Christmas. Amongst shopping busyness or ‘Closed for Christmas’ signs the season seems to be an ideal time to pull off a heist, or upfront robbery. So, this year’s Alternative Christmas Film Advent Calendar looks at a series of less-mentioned attempts at festive thefts.
Nicolas Cage has starred in a handful of festive and festive-adjacent films in his wide filmography yet it’s taken seven years for one to appear as part of the Alternative Christmas Film Advent Calendar. While he’s starred as Jacob Marley in a 2001 take on A Christmas Carol and The Family Man may be a more notable Christmas title 1994’s Trapped In Paradise seems to have slipped more into the background than these.
The Firpo brothers, Bill (Cage), Dave (Jon Lovitz) and Alvin (Dana Carvey) arrive in a small Pennsylvania town on Christmas Eve. They plan to get in quickly, steal the $275,000 in the vault (with Dave and Alvin claiming it’s for a fellow inmate (Vic Manni) from when they were in prison while Bill managed a restaurant having avoided a life of crime) and get out just as fast. However, a series of events in the quiet town of Paradise, where it seems everyone knows everyone, and a failed getaway leave them stuck there over Christmas, with the main roads out blocked by snow.
While desperate to leave, the trio are welcomed by the residents and treated to an array of festive treats and traditions. Trading in the coldness of their home apartment for the warmth of festivities and knitted jumpers (or a bundle of multiple layers). Paradise is a place of community and generosity, even shown in the responses of those caught in the bank during the initial robbery as they tell the masked criminals holding them at gunpoint that the manager is on his lunchbreak. It’s the people of Paradise that bring about the good tidings of the season, and in some ways push the central characters as they try to get out of the snowy confines with the stolen money, especially before they’re caught up with by either police or henchmen from the man they stole their plan from.
Much of this largely gone through by Cage’s character as the straight man to the frantic comedic turns of Lovtiz and Carvey – both not long after their respective SNL runs. It’s him who experiences the conventional Christmas film angles of Paradise and its residents. All ready for a cosy Christmas Day by the fire., and more than happy to welcome the three stranded, if slightly odd, strangers that have turned up on Christmas Eve after the escape of those bank robbers. Because, giving and helping those around us is what Christmas is all about in Paradise.
You can watch Trapped In Paradise via:
Amazon
iTunes
To find other places where you can buy, rent or steam the film, in whichever part of the world you might find yourself in, JustWatch is worth having a look at.
Just A Little Bit Random 