Club Paradise (1986)

Starring: Robin Williams, Peter O’Toole, Twiggy, Jimmy Cliff, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Joe Flaherty
Grade: A-

“Babe, this is the only country where the constitution is written in pencil.”

Summary

In Chicago, firefighter Jack Moniker (Williams) heads out for a call on another cold night. Him and his friend Dave (Bruce McGill) exit the truck, and Jack points out how the dalmatian gets to sit in the car while they have to go. Dave says it would be cruel since he’s just a dumb animal, but Jack corrects him to say they are the dumb animals. They lead the crew through a burning building, and everything is routine as usual. Jack carries a large woman out and needs Dave’s help, and the others spray down the building. As they sit on the pavement, Jack notes how the wind chill factor makes it ten below zero outside, his stomach feels terrible, and he has an icicle hanging from his nose. Jack tells Dave that this was his last fire. He’s done with being a firefighter. Dave calls bullshit because he’s heard Jack say this a thousand times, but Jack shows him a pamphlet he has on him about a “Paradise for pennies, a Garden of Eden built on a secluded lagoon with its own private dock and speedboat included”. It says to contact a Mr. Banks of the island St. Nicholas. Dave has never heard of St. Nicholas, so he asks where it’s located. Jack explains how it’s in the islands, the nice, warm islands. They are interrupted by an explosion, and a lady coming out of the building screaming about her baby still being in there. Jack asks for a crowbar and heads back into the building by himself. He goes upstairs, narrowly avoids being crushed by the roof, and uses the crowbar to get into the bedroom, only to finds that her “baby” is just an angry dog. The dog barks aggressively at Jack, so he improvises and throws a piece of wood out the window for the dog to fetch. It jumps out the window and lands on the net the other firefighters hold out for the dog to land safely. Jack hangs out from the window as the crowd outside cheers for him.

Unfortunately, there’s another explosion, and Jack is shot out of the building and to the rubble below. Dave goes to check on Jack, as he somehow survived. Barely getting words out, he tells Dave that he quits.

Sometime after, Jack flies to St. Nicholas to start the next phase of his life. Still wearing his cast, he arrives at the small island airport, finds a small house to stay, and we see time pass by as he assimilates into the culture and lifestyle of the island of St. Nicholas. Throughout this montage, he takes off his cast by himself, struggles to cut coconuts as he drops his machete in the water behind him, he works on the roof of his hut and falls through, and he befriends a local, Ernest Reed (Cliff). Ernest teaches Jack how to properly cut open a coconut on the back side of an axe, they go fishing, and Jack plays around and swims with the local children in the area, as he’s become a huge favorite among the townsfolk. Later, Jack makes his way to the resort area of the island and blasts music, going into a bar popular with tourists. The bartender has him turn it off and introduces Jack to Captain Toby Prooth (Simon Jones) and his girlfriend Phillipa Lloyd (Twiggy). They just came in from Antigua. Also at the bar is Governor Anthony Croyden Hayes (O’Toole) who Jack is familiar with. Jack greets him, and Hayes is surprised he’s still on the island. He likens Jack to a strange vegetation that popped up and they can’t get rid of. He says it’s like he’s been here for a year, but Jack reminds him that he’s only been there for 5 months. He’s just having too much fun. Hayes jokes that this is what he likes about tourists. The instant they get their pink feet into some sand, they start thinking about giving up the dry-cleaning business in Cleveland and moving to the islands. He asks Jack if he’s in this sort of business, so Jack explains how he’s a retired Chicago fireman. Prooth remembers there being a yacht club in Chicago at the Belmont Harbor, but Jack jokes that yachting is tough in Chicago because they tend to shoot at you from the South Shore. Hayes comments that the States have a nice, steady kind of violence and that it’s predictable. With the jungle, “It’s basically long, tedious periods of sweltering doldrums punctuated by the occasional bloodbath”. He thinks they’re due for one at any minute.

The other bartender interrupts Hayes because he doesn’t want him starting those rumors about revolution again. Hayes argues that it happened in Kenya and details to everyone in the bar how “They dragged those fat burghers from their beds in the dead of night, forced them to drink blood through a severed sheep’s penis and then hacked them to pieces with machetes”. The bartender argues that this is different because he doesn’t think there are any sheep on St. Nicholas.

To try and relate, Jack brings up a story about a guy in Cicero who stiffed a loan shark, so a couple of guys cut off his arm, beat him to death with the arm, put the arm in a food processor, made a dip out of it, and served it to the guy’s family at his sister’s wedding. His sister loved it so much that she wanted the recipe. Phillipa notes how cheerful the both of them are, but Hayes is quick to respond saying unlike her, he hasn’t been going from club to club with his ass hanging out. Phillipa comments that he’s missing all the fun, and he agrees. Getting up to leave, Jack tells Phillipa that he will be stopping by Club Paradise later, as there is some wonderful music. Prooth tells him they have other plans. Jack calls him a “party Cossack” and to be careful because somewhere on the island there’s a voodoo doll with his face on it. Phillipa can’t help but laugh. Later that night at Club Paradise, Ernest and his band are playing to a packed dance floor, and Phillipa and Prooth are there dancing. Jack shows up, greets some of the locals he knows, and walks by Phillipa. They both smile at each other before Jack goes to sit down. Phillipa sits down with him, and Jack gives her some bug spray. She turns it down because the bugs don’t bother her (HOW?!), but he thinks they will. Take it from him, he considers himself “Island Jack”. She plays along and asks what island he’s originally from, to which he replies “Ellis”. She questions what he does around here because they said he was a smuggler after he left the Palms. He jokingly corrects her by saying he’s a snuggler. In all seriousness, he confirms his retirement, as he lives off a big insurance settlement from the fire department for injury, as he’s deemed permanently and totally disabled in the line of duty. She thinks he seems fine, but he comments that he’s a mess inside. Changing the subject, he asks her to dance, and she accepts. As soon as he gets out of his chair though, he flops on the ground and claims injury. She goes along with it, and they go on the deck outside to talk.

Prooth sees this and follows them. He tells Phillipa he wants to leave because “this place is absolutely ghastly”. Jack defends the place because he’s friends with the owner in Ernest, and he considers it to be the finest hotel on the island. Prooth criticizes the whole operation however, even saying there probably isn’t a single native there that’s done a decent day’s work since they outlawed flogging. Ernest comes over to greet the three, and Jack introduces him. Ernest is the owner, manager, and musical entertainment director of Club Paradise. Jack tells Ernest that Prooth was reminiscing about the good old days, calling him out for talking about flogging and slavery. Ernest gets serious, and Prooth just tells Phillipa that he wants to leave because he’s getting a headache. Phillipa tells him to go because she wants to stay, so he does. On the way out, Jack comments “Take care. See you in the 17th century”. Jack, Phillipa, and Ernest sit down with some friends and talk until Prime Minister Solomon “Sol” Gundy (Adolph Caesar) shows up with his two bodyguards. The mood changes in Club Paradise upon his arrival, as everyone knows Gundy is a corrupt official. Ernest excuses himself to see what Gundy wants. There is a lot of tension between the two, and Gundy takes Ernest to the side to speak privately. He notes that when he became Prime Minister, he told Ernest to come to him with any problems he may have. Since he’s also the Minister of Finance and Minister of Tourism, he has found out that Ernest has not paid his taxes and owes $6,000. In addition, Ernest hasn’t paid his food and beverage taxes, there are violations of the tourism codes, and there have been reports of “ganja” being smoked on the premises. He asks how this can continue, and Ernest just replies, “Divine justice, Mr. Gundy”. Gundy implies vague threats, but Ernest doesn’t back down and physically throws him out. Gundy’s bodyguards come near Ernest, but Jack helps Ernest shove them off.

The bodyguards are about to attack, but everyone in the club stand behind Jack and Ernest, so they stop before they get any closer. Gundy gives Ernest two weeks to pay his debt. He also tells Jack that he won’t forget him either. Ernest considers running after them while they walk away, but Jack stops him. He tells Ernest to get a lawyer, but Ernest just thinks he needs money. Truth be told, he needs both, but it’s whatever (“Cool vibes, everyone”). Ernest re-starts the party with everyone, and he gets back on stage to play his music. Phillipa asks what this was all about, and Jack considers it the usual, corruption and injustice. They walk outside, and Phillipa doesn’t understand what the problem is because it looks like the club is doing great. Jack explains that it’s more about Ernest never paying his taxes and it will lead him to losing the club entirely. She thinks they can turn the club into something special with some fixes and things, but Jack jokes that he could also turn it into a great insurance fire. She laughs, but she does question if he has any ambition or wants anything out of life. He simply states “Yeah” and gets close to Phillipa, who smiles but tells him to chill. The next day at the Royal St. Nicholas Hotel, Ernest and his band plays in the common area where the wealthy Voit Zerbe (Doyle-Murray) is sitting with two women as they have lunch and listen to them play. It’s a tryout to see if Ernest’s band can play for Zerbe’s hotel. Zerbe has Ernest stop and compliments his music, but he’s not sure if Ernest is really needed because he thinks tourists would be happy with basic island music with some randoms playing on garbage cans. He doesn’t like Ernest’s politically charged music. Ernest says he has other songs, but Zerbe knows the business and he doesn’t think a tourist spending big money wants to know that the band is angry. He encourages Ernest to keep playing at his own club and asks how it’s going at Club Paradise, so Ernest admits they’re trying to take his hotel from him. Zerbe doesn’t consider Ernest’s place a hotel though.

He points to his own establishment as a better example of one. Zerbe thinks Ernest’s place is a beach with a few rooms that “Marlin Perkins would be afraid to go in”. Zerbe says that if Ernest was smart, he’d sell Club Paradise to him and get out.

He continues to encourage Ernest, mentioning how well he would do in a place like New York with some money in his pocket and how he should take his advice on selling the place. Ernest tells Zerbe he has style, but it’s not for him. Still, Zerbe tells him to think it over. Meanwhile, Jack takes Phillipa to his place and offers for her to stay in his guest bedroom free of charge. She declines. If she wanted to be with someone, she jokes that she’d pick someone with better prospects. Hearing this, Jack reveals that he’s going to be a future partner of Club Paradise. This surprises Phillipa because she thought he was stuck in his premature retirement fantasy to which he replies that he has lots of fantasies, including her wearing just socks, along with him running a club in the tropics. She reminds him how running a hotel won’t be easy, but Jack is open to the challenge. He asks her to stay with him in St. Nicholas. He will give her a job and everything. However, Phillipa brings up how Prooth and the others she came with will be sailing to Martinique on Saturday, and she is supposed to be going with them. Jack tells her to forget Prooth. She can stay here with him and leave whenever she wishes. He jokes that she won’t even have to make love to him, though she’ll want to. Phillipa walks away from him, so he admits it won’t be right away. Still, she’s on the fence. It might be fun for a while, but who knows? He argues that its major life experience and offers time and a half for overtime, along with insurance. Finally, she agrees to stay, and they kiss. Following this, Jack, Ernest, and Phillipa spend time with their crew fixing up the property to look more like a proper resort hotel. They even take photographs to create a brochure, with them acting like they caught a big fish in the ocean and putting on different costumes and such to act like they are people visiting the resort. They send them everywhere and it gains traction quick.

Looking at one of the brochures, Linda (Andrea Martin) tells her husband Dr. Randy White (Steven Kampmann) that this is the place they need to go to. Randy agrees without protest, and Linda is already annoyed with how simple the conversation was between them. At a bar somewhere, the girl-crazy best friends Barry Nye (Moranis) and Barry Steinberg (Levy) read into the ad and agree to go. A woman next to them overhears them, so Barry invites her to come with. She turns her back to them. Reporter Terry Hamlin (Joanna Cassidy) calls about the brochure, and two sexually depraved women at their work in Jackie (Mary Gross) and Mary Lou (Robin Duke) also look at it and get excited. Soon after, this group of people all take a small plane to St. Nicholas together. They’ve been circling in the air for a while, so Linda tells Randy to ask the pilot (Flaherty) to see how much longer they will be. Randy goes to the cockpit to ask the pilot how much further it is. With his gigantic glasses on, the pilot reveals he doesn’t know and looks at his map. He considers it a “couple more inches” and is just looking for a hole. Annoyed, Randy tells him to just find it, so the pilot yells at him to go back to his seat. Immediately after, the pilot sees a break in the clouds and goes for it like he’s going to war. He dips the plane and everyone starts to freak out. He doesn’t know where the airport is. Barry Nye goes to the cockpit to point out the runway, but the pilot is worried because it looks terribly small. Nye yells at him to land the plane and goes back to his seat. The plane starts stalling out as they get near, and the pilot can’t keep the plane straight. Waiting on the runway is Jack and Ernest, with Jack noting how he doesn’t hear any engines. Ernest suggests that it’s a glider. The pilot is able to land the plane, but it is far from smooth. In addition, he lands in the bushes near the end of the runway. As soon as the plane comes to a stop, the pilot kicks a bunch of luggage out of the door and runs down to excitedly claim he made it, kissing the ground because he thought they were all going to die. Randy demands his name, but he ignores him.

Jack tells Ernest to remind him to get a new pilot. The two then wait to greet all the people as they come off the plane. On Zerbe’s yacht, he meets with an agitated Gundy, who explains that Jack has paid Ernest’s taxes. Zerbe hasn’t heard of Jack, but he wants to make sure their deal isn’t going to be stopped just because “some hippies want to do bed-and-breakfast on the beach”. He tells Gundy to get them out of there but also tells him to relax because he knows it will take a lot to turn Club Paradise around and he doesn’t think they can do it.

The guests arrive at Club Paradise, and Jack helps with the luggage. He asks Terry if she enjoyed her trip, but she didn’t. He tries to assure her that things are different in the Third World, but she is actually very well traveled, prompting Jack to ask what she does. She explains that she reviews resorts and hotels for The New York Times travel section. Jack is at a loss for words and just tells her to enjoy before leaving. Nye and Steinberg try to flirt with her, but she declines almost immediately. Nye tells Steinberg to not worry because “all the good knish is already on the beach”. Following this, Nye and Steinberg are sun tanning on the beach, and Steinberg points out Jackie and Mary Lou as potential girls to go after. Nye isn’t sure, but Steinberg gets on him for staring because it will make the girls want to come over and talk to them. Jackie notices the two staring and excitingly relays this to Mary, but she tells Jackie to not be pathetic because there has to be more to do here than just lie on a beach waiting for strange men to talk to them. Jackie doesn’t care. She goes over to talk to them. She asks the two to put lotion on her back, but Steinberg declines because he doesn’t want to get his hands greasy since they might get some food in a few minutes. Nye goes along with it and tells her maybe later (“Much later”). Jackie accepts the dismissal and goes back to Mary. Privately, Nye tells Steinberg to be nicer because the two women will look a lot nicer if they haven’t scored by Thursday. Jackie tells Mary the guys were shy, but she doesn’t buy it. In their hotel room or hut rather, Linda complains to Randy that there isn’t any water in the shower. That’s not all either. She finds that the towels are stolen from other hotels, there’s no soap, no complimentary shampoo, no complimentary sewing kit (is that usually provided?), and no shower cap. Randy looks at the brochure and sees that it’s the same room, but he notes how they took the picture for it with a wide angled lens or something because it looks much bigger in the picture. As he contemplates suing, Linda complains that the room isn’t air conditioned. Randy is mad at himself because he just assumed the room had it.

Linda says they can’t save a marriage without air conditioning, which tells you where they’re at. She opens the bathroom door and finds the pilot inside washing his face. Confused, he turns to ask if she needs to use the bathroom.

Later, Jack is walking with Phillipa on the beach and Terry exits her room and runs into them. Jack asks politely if everything is satisfactory, but it’s not. Jack explains how they just opened up so they are ironing out the bugs, prompting Terry to comment that he will find most of the bugs in her room. Jack jokes that they will have them ironed out immediately. Phillipa laughs, but Terry doesn’t. At the front desk, Randy points out to the front desk clerk Pansy Brown (Verna Hampton) that it says the bathroom is private on the brochure, but Pansy explains it was a mistake. He starts to argue with her until Jack asks what the issue is. Linda does the talking and points out the problem of the brochure specifically saying, “private bath”, but they now have to share the bathroom with the pilot next door. Jack explains that when they say private, it means that the bathroom isn’t open to the general public. He does agree that it’s misleading and promises to change it to “secluded” instead of private. Randy gets in his face and says it’s not going to be that easy, but Jack threatens him. Linda calms things down, asking Jack if she will at least be able to take a decent shower or is the water always going to be like that. Holding his wrench, Jack says he’s on it and she will have the finest shower possible tonight. On the way out, Jack tells Randy, “The name’s Moniker” daring him to do something. Not backing down, Randy tells him that he’s got it. Back on the beach, Nye and Steinberg see two fine women appear as they head to the water. They are enthralled. Unfortunately, the women are with two guys. Steinberg thinks they’re gay, even though the two couples are kissing. Nye passes them off as cousins. Later, Randy is on the beach and Linda walks out to meet him. He has champagne for her, but she wants to try the water parachute thing and goes over to introduce herself to the guys that work it. At the same time, Jack greets Nye and Steinberg, but Nye is quick to tell him the beach is dead (“It’s all preparation and no ‘H”). Jack doesn’t buy this and points out the two women they were looking at before, but they both come up with excuses.

Jack lies and says the girls were talking about them, so he already put a good word in. This encourages them, as Jack doubles down on the lie. He tells them to mingle. If they stick with it, “Your meat will be smoked. You know what I’m saying?”. He invites them to the club for later tonight before leaving. Linda goes up in the air with her parachute, but the rope tied to the boat breaks, and she flies all over the place. Randy watches as she crashes into a tree back on the beach, but she’s okay. In fact, she enjoyed the adventure of it all. In the club area, Jack goes over to Ernest and the band because they’re not playing any music. When he jokingly asks if they’re on a union break, they all leave. A frustrated Ernest sits on the stage and tells Jack that he has his own songs, refusing to do the others Jack requested. He doesn’t want to wear the costumes Jack had made for them either. Jack argues that he doesn’t like what he’s wearing either, but it’s for the people and the pageantry of it all. He jokes that Ernest reminds him of another black man he gave advice to and implies he’s talking about Michael Jackson, as he “told” him to wear just one glove. His punchline reveal was that he was actually talking about Willie Mays. Ernest agrees to do it just once but promises to burn the clothes right after. In the kitchen, Jack meets with head chef Portia (Louise Bennett) because she refuses to let assistant cook Tree (Bunny Melville) into the kitchen, as she considers his long dreads to be unsanitary. She wants Tree to cut the hair or leave. Jack follows Tree outside to talk privately. After turning down Tree’s weed, Jack tells Tree that he loves the hair, but he’s getting a lot of flak from the Health Department. He’s also uncomfortable with the thought of a guest finding hair in their food. Tree gets what he’s saying, but he can’t cut his hair. Jack thinks of an idea. Jack brings Tree back into the kitchen with a chef’s hat that’s a foot long standing up to cover his dreads. Portia says it’s passable, so Jack leaves after giving him the advice to watch out for the fans.

On the polo course, Zerbe tells Gundy they have a deal on the table and the others involved are coming in. They have to deliver. Gundy blames Jack and tells Zerbe that he used every legal means at his disposal to deal with him, and he still can’t move them. Zerbe knows they can find a way around the law to get to Jack but before they discuss details, Hayes interrupts the two on his horse. He greets Zerbe, and the two ride alongside each other for a private conversation. Zerbe knows Hayes is friends with Jack, so he brings up Club Paradise. He wants Hayes to talk to Jack because “I’d hate to see anybody get hurt”. Hayes sarcastically responds how thoughtful this is. Zerbe acts like he’s trying to do what’s best for everybody, and Hayes tells him this is kind before riding off. Zerbe gets off his horse and uses his stick to bat the ball away, arguing that’s how polo should be played. In their room, Linda talks about how alive she felt flying through the trees, but Randy is laying on the bed and barely responds. She asks if he had any fun, but he’s just pissed off. Even so, she wants him to try just a little bit harder to do so moving forward. As she heads into the bathroom, she lets Randy know that Helmut and Christopher are giving her cliff-diving lessons. She wants Randy to try, but he’s not interested (“Nothing could be more fun than jumping off a cliff with two German bisexuals”). She turns on the shower, and the water pressure is similar to that of a firehose. It violently throws Linda around the room. She screams for Randy’s help, but he fell asleep. That night at the club, Jack greets Linda and Randy, complimenting Linda. He asks how the shower was, and she admits it was brutal. Randy lets Jack know there is a foot of water in their room and gets in his face, but Jack pushes him back with the balloon he’s holding and tells him to have a nice night. Phillipa takes Randy and Linda away to hear about the problem, and they go with. On the way, Randy comments to Jack, “Nice resort”, and Jack counters with “Nice pants. The ’60s are over, pal”.

Randy’s pants are pretty ridiculous too, so I’ll give this round to Jack.

Hayes shows up to the club and greets Jack. Hayes talks about how he wanted to see what all the fuss was about with the club and intends on checking out the women. Before he does, he takes Jack in private to say they may need to discuss more important matters sometime soon. Jack is down but not right now. Currently, he points out Terry. Telling Hayes how she’s a writer for The New York Times, Jack wants Hayes to charm her because there’s a good chance she will write a nice piece about the place. Hayes agrees to do so after Jack tells him that drinks will be on the house and they’ll be doubles. Hayes heads over to Terry and asks if he’s late for the entertainment while he sits next to her, but she tells him that he’s good. Hayes reveals to her that Jack told him to check her out, and he tells her that he knows she’s a journalist. He wonders what she will say about this place, but she’s not sure. It does remind her of a Japanese POW camp though, which gets a chuckle out of Hayes. She asks what he does, so he has her guest. Seeing how he is too tanned to hold a respectable job, she guesses he’s a retired millionaire. He says he doesn’t have money anywhere, which is why he lives in the West Indies. It’s one of the best places in the world to be poor. He’s also divorced. Terry questions if his ex-wife couldn’t stand the tropics to which he responds, “Loved the tropics. It was me she couldn’t stand”. She can’t help but smile at his charming delivery.

The hijinks of Club Paradise continues as the guests try and have fun, and Jack and Ernest try to make things go swimmingly. Unfortunately, Gundy and Zerbe’s plans to destroy the place are still well in place.

My Thoughts:

Club Paradise resides firmly in the ever-growing community of movies that critics were wrong about. Fun and harmless, director Harold Ramis essentially takes the heart of Caddyshack and places it in the Caribbean with a more focused effort in showcasing hotel hijinks instead of country club shenanigans, and the tropical comedy is an amusing, free-flowing, all-around entertaining feature that utilizes its beautiful island landscape just as well as its golden premise. Filmed on location in Jamaica and overloaded with positive vibes one would feel while on vacation, but also the perfect amount of political chaos that makes the irony of the title a joy to watch unfold, Club Paradise deserves a second look as an underrated gem from 1986.

Very rarely will you hear this, but the one thing that holds the film back is the casting of Robin Williams. His brand of anarchic, madcap, mile-a-minute humor does fit the screenplay on paper, as the idea of Robin Williams running a hotel on the islands and dealing with everyday problems like bad piping, trying to figure out amenities hotels would usually have, facing local authorities, and trying to avoid a political revolution is an environment that the legendary comedian should thrive in. His ceiling in the role could be a 1980s version of what Groucho Marx was as the hotel manager in The Cocoanuts, the gold standard for a character like this. Unfortunately, the Robin Williams we know and love is not what is infused with main character Jack Moniker, even though this would have been the perfect time for it. Instead, a different approach is taken, and Williams is confined to the parameters of the script. In portraying “Island Jack”, he laughably turns down weed from the Barrys as if he doesn’t do drugs (Williams turning down any drug in the 1980s is probably the most unbelievable thing that happens in the movie) and insists to Ernest that he doesn’t like wearing his brand of colorful flowered shirts and such that make him look “like a Hawaiian pimp”, even though Williams himself dresses like that all the time in real-life interviews, stand-up performances, and other movies. Instead of letting the real Robin Williams loose in the movie, they chain him down and only let bits and pieces out. In the actor’s defense, he still does a great job fitting the vibe and energy Club Paradise is trying to bring to the screen. However, it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to not fully unleash the maniac on this picture and change elements of the screenplay to adhere to his casting. Now, don’t get us wrong, he’s still funny as the lead, but he does come off as being restrained a bit. His performance is rather subdued, playing the role of a sarcastic slacker who eventually finds himself in a high stakes’ situation because of his devotion to his friend and the relaxed island lifestyle.

Would it make more sense if Williams was the head of this circus-like resort and enjoying the anarchy that follows in a Marx Brothers-like manner? Sure, but that’s not the screenplay Harold Ramis and Brian Doyle-Murray wrote, or at least it wasn’t to that degree.

Again, Williams is not a total dud as the protagonist. He’s still quite likable as Jack Moniker, and he does keep the story moving. His love for what the island of St. Nicholas has to offer and his friendship with Ernest inspiring him to make a stand to help fight alongside him is believable and keeps our attention to the end. However, basic research about the production of Club Paradise explains everything. The lead role was offered to Bill Murray, who turned it down. Just this one note thoroughly clarifies everything about the character, his brand of humor, the unambitious slacker persona, his toughness when others try to threaten him, and his general personality. With this game-changing production detail, you can see why you couldn’t just pick and choose any comic actor to play the lead role, as it was clearly written with Murray’s comedic stylings in mind. Casting someone like Robin Williams as the main character requires a complete rewrite of the script because though both talents can level up a production just by being involved, their styles and personalities are tonally and totally different. Moments like Williams impressively imitating a harmonica in the jail scene or accidentally using a helium tank instead of an oxygen tank with his scuba gear is more his style, but there wasn’t a lot of material outside of this that really utilized his strengths. To be fair, if you didn’t know this about the production, you would give Club Paradise a higher grade. Sadly, knowing what could have been brings it down a tinge because watching the movie makes it that much more obvious that Williams was miscast. Not only is he the furthest thing from a Chicago fireman, but the character itself has Bill Murray’s comedic persona written all over it. It hits the viewer especially hard when Jack refuses to be intimidated by Randy, with Randy at one point asking Jack if he’s threatening him and he happily replies “Yes”. Those types of moments scream “Bill Murray”. In Ramis’s film, the character of Jack Moniker is basically Murray getting his chance to play a grown-up version of Tripper Harrison from Meatballs or Chevy Chase’s Ty Webb from Caddyshack, only in the Caribbean on the fictional island of St. Nicholas.

Murray would have fit the tone, the energy, and the material of Club Paradise like a glove, and it might be one of the biggest missed opportunities of any comedy coming out of the 1980s. That is how much Murray could have changed the trajectory of this movie. Not only does he embody the Chicago attitude, but the sarcastic main character who has a quip for everyone and laughs at the face of authority is Murray’s entire comedic persona on film. The character winning over Twiggy in the first act with his brand of humor is basically a replica of how Murray’s Peter Venkman does with Sigourney Weaver’s Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters. Murray returning from his two-year Ghostbusters sabbatical with his small role in Little Shop of Horrors AND the lead in Club Paradise could have been legendary. Not getting the full Bill Murray until 1988’s Scrooged is genuinely upsetting from a cinematic history standpoint. Seriously, that’s how much he could have made this movie. Since John Cleese was the original choice for Governor Hayes because the idea was to make this a dream team led by the Saturday Night Live and Monty Python icons, the supporting cast was filled with SCTV alum, and National Lampoon‘s Ramis and Doyle-Murray were heading up the entire thing, this had the potential to one of those 80s comedies that we glowingly praise to this day like Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, The Blues Brothers, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Spies Like Us, or a dealer’s choice of any Steve Martin or Eddie Murphy movie. It’s a shame Murray turned this down because he was tailor-made for this script. For example, there’s a scene in which Jack is in his office with Ernest, and Gundy enters in hopes that the two will concede to his offer/threat. Jack opens with, “You’re prompt. When you threaten somebody, you’re right on time” before declining the offer and defiantly telling him to come back in a year. It’s an exchange that had Murray written all over it. After Gundy sends in his army and the band has to cover for Jack and Ernest’s escape Blues Brothers-style, the two run into the jungle while being shot at.

Once they get to a stopping point, Ernest lets Jack know that it’s time to wage war (“There’s a sickness in this place and I’m the doctor. It’s time to operate”). Refusing to listen to Jack’s words and saying how he doesn’t want to hurt Jack while holding his machete, leading to Jack letting him go, Williams’s delivery of “Oh, sure! Go start a revolution! It’s not gonna look good on your resume, you know! Goddamn it! You hear me? We’re finished as partners! I’m going back to Chicago where its safe” is arguably the most Bill Murray-line of the movie. This film could have been a playground for him! Not only would Murray have breathed the right type of life into the material, but his brand of humor was also perfect for the events that unfold in Club Paradise. On top of that, even if he did turn it down and there was no way around it, Robin Williams shouldn’t have even been the second-best choice. Considering the material and how things play out, Chevy Chase would have been excellent, as would Billy Crystal, though neither would have been more believable as having a background as a Chicago fireman than Bill Murray. Then again, I would have thought the same about Crysyal being a Chicago cop, but Running Scared was great, so he could have proven us wrong here too. Actually, Billy Crystal specifically would have been the closest thing to getting Bill Murray in the role of the protagonist. Just thinking about watching him interact with Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy’s sleazy characters is chuckle-worthy. At least we got the novelty of Robin Williams interacting with the two legends of comedy though (“I’m a federal narcotics agent and you’re both under arrest. I’m just kidding, but I could be. There’s a lot of heat on me, guys. If you really want something, ask that guy over there. DONT LOOK! If you get caught, I don’t know you”) Again, Williams isn’t bad by any means, but it’s obvious this material would have been better suited from his peers in the comic actor world, which is why Club Paradise stops before it can reach its full potential.

Speaking of which, the chemistry of Moranis and Levy garner a lot of laughs (“DYNAMITE rays”). All of their banter is quotable, as their hairy, sleazy losers are so over-the-top in their goal of getting women and trying to act like they are the catch is consistently amusing (“They look nice” – Nice? Forget nice. My mother’s nice”). Their tactics are comically terrible like Nye pretending Steinberg is his uncle and his father in different instances. You might ask, when would this play ever work? Well, that’s all part of the humor. Those who are fans of comedy shouldn’t be surprised that the two’s side quest adventures are some of the biggest highlights of the movie such as Nye promising to “cop some primo cannabis sativa” in hopes of getting laid, taking this outrageous detour in the middle of the night with a local taxi driver to the point where they are scared for their lives, only getting a single blunt out of the deal, and the women basically snatching it away from the two to smoke with their other guy friends when Nye and Steinberg finally come back to the club with it. So much for getting “totally demented”, which is a phrase I will use forever after watching this movie. Their reuniting once Nye comes back after nearly dying and Steinberg is holding the gigantic bag of weed right before a civil war almost breaks out was great.

As mentioned previously, comedy legend John Cleese was supposed to play Governor Hayes, but the casting of Peter O’Toole actually works better as the grounding force that stabilizes the movie. Nobody plays a classy, charming alcoholic quite as well as O’Toole. Every line, insult, or flirtations quip he has in the chamber is spoken with an eloquence that only the 8-time Academy Award nominated actor could deliver so effortlessly. He can tell Jack things about how St. Nicholas is for sale as well as “the people, the government, the businesses, the natural resources. It happens all the time” with this flippant attitude about how the world works, but he’s so good at it that it’s impossible to not like him. Just his conversation with Terry as he looks at the magnificent island from his balcony commenting, “I hate beauty. Do you realize how boring it gets looking at beauty day in and day out?” is magnificently stated. Following this, he lets Terry in on the grim reality of the island on how “the Americans will come in and turn it into Miami Beach, or the Russians and Cubans will come in and turn the whole island into bloody Albania. There really is no hope. Islands like St. Nicholas makes such nice missile bases, naval stations, money laundries”. Still, he’s good at rambling off these lines that you don’t want to stop him. Plus, it gives us a little insight into how important Hayes’s role is on the island, despite him downplaying it as much as possible. Terry questions why he doesn’t just go to New York or London if he has a problem with what may happen, but Hayes explains “If the world is going to hell in a bucket, I want to hold the handle”. It just further fuels the character as one who revels in what he does and the persona he gives off to others until he actually has to do his job, which is something he does respect more than he would like to admit. It’s evidenced at the end of the second act once Jack shows up at his office, and Hayes hilariously comments, “It’s the fireman. I thought you gone. You people are so quick to flee these days. First hint of a war and they start running like children. I was certain you’d be back in Minnesota or Dakota or wherever it is”.

They go back and forth on how Jack can’t leave St. Nicholas, Hayes arguing how he won’t find paradise here, and how Hayes’s idea of paradise is being in an expensive hotel suite in New York with “two hopelessly depraved young women”. It’s not until Jack brings him back to reality about how he’s expecting an army, how he calls Hayes out for being there for 15 years talking about how things don’t matter, and how it actually does because Gundy has gone nuts and a lot of innocent people are going to be hurt because of it, with disasters like this only continuing on other islands if they don’t put a stop to it. This is when Hayes realizes the severity of what’s going on and promises to help, though also making the offhand remark, “Oh, be careful of the soldiers. They’ll shoot you on sight”. Seeing his purpose not reveal itself until that late in the movie was very well done. The subplot of Jack sending Hayes over to charm journalist Terry was a fun development too. At first, it comes off as giving the two something random to do until the ending, but the way they tie it together, with Terry enjoying her time with Hayes on the island but is also in attendance for Prime Minister Gundy’s call-to-arms speech where he decrees a national state of emergency and martial law, demanding all members of the National Defense Reserve Army Guard to report for active duty due to Ernest and Jack apparently “threatening the peace of prosperity of this, our ancestral, if not native, home”, sets everything up for a great finale. As soon as Terry tells Hayes she has a phone call to make, you realize how pivotal this casual relationship is. Terry and Hayes match each other’s sophistication well despite the age difference, and it makes for a very funny moment when the powdered wig wearing Gundy declares that day as a one that will live in “infamousity”, and the two look at each other to acknowledge how stupid Gundy really is. As tyrannical as he acts as the Prime Minister, Adolph Caesar angrily playing things straight while everyone else messes with him is entertaining. We needed more moments like Phillipa bailing Jack out of jail, Jack waving over at the two villains in Gundy and Zerbe, and them not knowing what to do other than waving back.

All of it leads to Gundy getting more frustrated and kicking a chicken as a response (“I thought people were out to get me. Now I know. They are out to get me. There they are now!”).

Still, Peter O’Toole’s Hayes is fantastic in the time given and really strengthens the subplot of the movie as the political figure lackadaisically lurking in the shadows and giving Jack the wink and the nod, watching his activities until he’s inspired to actually get up and do something. It leads to one of my favorite endings of the 1980s that exemplifies the “Caddyshack on an island” moniker that its given, with the military being involved, a revolution and civil war beginning, the British having to intervene, and a chase on the shores of the beach that nearly causes an international incident. It’s a finale that pushes the movie into the next threshold when it could have settled for much less. Thankfully, it didn’t, and the image of Hayes in his military attire riding a white horse with the natives behind him on the beach is awesome. As fun as a mismanaged hotel can be, we have seen it before. For our benefit, it’s what sets everything up, but the political turmoil boiling over between Ernest and Prime Minister Gundy is the real treat that maximizes the anarchy, and Jack trying to do the right thing by helping his friend fight off the corrupt government is just so much fun. Because of this, the supporting cast is utilized quite well. Their comedic segments in-between the action are given just enough time to liven the other aspects of the narrative to bide time before it all takes heed in the third act. Had there been too much of the Barrys, the desperate Jackie and Mary Lou, and free spirit Linda and her disgruntled husband Randy, it would have been nowhere near as interesting. All that’s needed is small gags like Linda singing Ernest’s song “Third World People” like she gets it or Randy reading a book about Dwight D. Eisenhower on the beach is all the viewer needs to get their shtick.

In a rare acting role, Jimmy Cliff did a great job in the pivotal role of Ernest. While contributing some wonderful reggae compositions to the soundtrack, he also does a great job in presenting the Ernest character as a fearless local who refuses to be intimidated by Gundy, even when he’s in jail and threatened by death, which only leads to Ernest welcoming the thought right back at Gundy. Twiggy was also a solid love interest too.

Not everything works, but that’s expected. The journey to “Devil’s Hole” where all the guests can do whatever they want never gets off the ground, though Eugene Levy saves it from being a complete dud with him talking to Mary Lou and Jackie about how communism won’t work on an island like St. Nicholas while being completely nude and encouraging the two women to join him for a naked jog. That and his line to the hotter women about how he would jump off the cliff like the others if he didn’t have diarrhea were hysterical. The idea behind this segment could have been funny like the guests’ clothes being stolen and Randy setting things up by rambling about how these unknown people could be watching them and they don’t know what they want, but the paranoid chaos that could happen is a one-and-done with this line, as it only leads to Randy being refreshed with the dangerous adventure they are facing and helping Linda fight off an anaconda. Barry Nye holding onto the sailboard into a windstorm is somewhat humorous, but it doesn’t make sense as to why he didn’t just let go of the thing before he went that far with it. On the flip side, Jack panicking over losing 10 of his guests in the span of an hour was funny as hell. Phillipa suggesting the group took a hike, but his quick dispelling of this because “This is not a hiking crowd” is an underrated line, as was his telling Phillipa to tell all the “survivors, I mean guests” to stay in because of the storm. A lot of the smaller details are appreciated too like Jack wanting Ernest to tone down his more political lyrics to keep the resort vibes up, Linda’s limbo scene, two girls simply having a banana and the other having an apple on their plate at the club, and Jack breaking the glass to get out the fire hose but realizing he could have just flipped a switch to open it right after.

Zerbe and Gundy trying to sell the area to wealthy Arabs and then Zerbe expertly planting the seeds of going after the Cayman Islands, leaving Gundy to scramble with the chaos on St. Nicholas, was also a nice touch as far as the narrative goes. Brian Doyle-Murray’s role as Zerbe was an understated villain too and could have been more in the grand scheme of things. His implied threats about Jack to Hayes, Hayes telling Jack how he took Zerbe’s bribe, and Hayes interpreting it all as Zerbe threatening to have “England’s legs broken” since the government of St. Nicholas is ready to sell off the island and Jack and Ernest are the only one’s standing in the way of their plan, was a cool layer of intrigue added to the plot to drive up the gravity of the situation. If anything, they undersold it in an effort to make sure the comedy suppresses any of the crazier plot developments. Now, we’re not saying that it should have included areas of drama or anything because the tone of Club Paradise is exactly what it should be, but there were spots of thrills and action that could have still been funny but also exciting to boot. Had they directed sequences like Jack and Ernest sneaking on board the boat to get information on why Gundy wants their hotel so badly, in an effort to spy for Hayes since he’s acting as a representative of Great Britain, with some suspense, they would have been much better off. The same could be said about the tense standoff with Jack and Zerbe at Zerbe’s Royal St. Nicholas Hotel where they are both aware of each other’s roles in this business deal, and Zerbe tries to convince him to take the money and leave the island. In an ultra-cool moment, Jack plays a game of blackjack since they are right next to the table. He pulls up an “18” but hits, getting “3” to win. Zerbe notes how crazy he is and likes it, suggesting he play again. Like an absolute boss, Jack declines, saying he’s crazy but not stupid. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the character and this brewing cold war, but they again undersold some of the more exciting moments within the movie to make sure it’s still focused entirely on being a breezy comedy.

Basically, they lost faith and sold themselves short, which is a shame because they had all the elements in making this a top tier film of the year. It’s still a good movie, but it just missed out on hitting that next level due to a lack of confidence in the material as a whole.

Club Paradise is a large-scale Caddyshack. That’s how it should be looked at. It’s not better, but the energy, humor, and tone are all right there with it. With a great cast, a tropical soundtrack that is sure to put a smile on your face, and an entertaining narrative that succeeds in many ways, this happy but disorderly comedy is one that deserves a lot more love than it gets.

Fun Fact: As mentioned previously, the original idea was for Bill Murray to star and John Cleese to play Peter O’Toole’s role, but Murray declined and Cleese dropped out.