This review is a part of my Bill Paxton Project, an attempt to watch and review every piece of film the man did during his lifetime.
Okay, finally got around to watching the movie Haven (2006) yesterday. Technically, this is a Bill Paxton film, as he does appear in it, but his total screen time is only a few minutes scattered around the flick. Paxton plays a father who is a dirty businessman, hiding illegal money in the Cayman Islands. When the feds raid his Miami home, he escapes with his daughter and a healthy chunk of cash to the Caymans. Then the film pivots, the first of many.
There is a lot of screen talent at work here. Besides Paxton, the film also features Anthony Mackie (Avengers: Civil War, Captain America: Brave New World), Zoe Saldana (Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy) and Orlando Bloom (Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean). Problem is, the actors aren’t given much to work with. Background motivations aren’t really provided to the audience for most of what happens. This is especially obvious with Mackie’s character, “Hammer”, who possesses a Tybalt-level hatred for Bloom’s character “Shy” that is a key component of the entire storyline, but simply never explained.
The film is presented in a non-linear format, with abrupt time jumps that accomplish little to advance the narrative, but they make up for that shortage by excessively confusing the audience. One critic called the effect “gratuitously non-linear”, and that feels about right. The writer-director, Frank E. Flowers, was perhaps too ambitious with his feature debut, and might have benefited from deeper study of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction in film school.
Like some of his other projects from this era, Paxton is under-utilized in this exploration of love and hate among the youth in Grand Cayman, his character merely the vessel to bring his daughter into the story. If you feel you need to see it, this film is currently available for free on Tubi.
