Grand Isle
A throwback to the golden age of erotic thrillers without the thrills or worthwhile eroticism, Grand Isle arrived on VOD earlier this month with a mundane thud.
The film stars Luke Benward (Dumplin’) as Buddy, a handsome handyman who finds himself drawn into the tumultuous love life of an incredibly unhappy couple as a hurricane tears through the world outside. Buddy is a family many himself, having just welcomed his daughter into the world a few months prior. Still, he's suffering from a lack of cash and a domestic partner who shows no interest in sexual activity. His reluctant stay with the couple becomes increasingly complicated when the husband, Walter (Nicolas Cage), offers Buddy $20,000 to kill his wife, Fancy (KaDee Strickland, Fever Pitch), who wants nothing more than to sleep with Buddy.
The core elements of Grand Isle are good. Love triangles are generally a reliable source of tension, and desperate people are not known for thinking clearly when tempted with the very thing their lives are lacking. However, director Stephen S. Campanelli (Momentum) does not possess the vision needed to bring the various story elements together in a meaningful way. Furthermore, the narrative is needlessly complicated by a framing device involving a lawyer (Kelsey Grammar, doing as little as possible) that weakens the inherent tension.
Most surprising and disappointing, however, is that Cage and his chaotic energy cannot lift Grand Isle out of the trenches. Walter is a broken and bitter man who sees the world through a nihilistic lens fueled, at least in part, by his impotence. It's the kind of role that provides Cage plenty of room to become unhinged, but even the actor's most erratic choices fail to give the film a pulse. He's a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, a lone beacon of hope amidst a sea of monotony, offering brief glimpses of what might have been possible with someone else behind the camera.
Grade: D-plus. Not rated. Now available on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube
(Photo: Screen Media Films)
