Juliette Binoche

Frank Grillo

Morgan Freeman

Hala Finley

Cameron Monaghan

Veronica Ferres

Christiane Seidel

Jackie Dallas

Tommie Earl Jenkins

Trayce Malachi

Calvin Williams

Raymond McAnally

Jayden Hamilton

Walker Babington

Tracy Pfau

Diva Tyler

Jwaundace Candece

Xavier Scott Evans

Jim Dougherty

Ronnie Yelverton

Joey Traywick

Bill Luckett

Eric Scarabin

John Read

Anna Gutto

Dorothea Sick Thiess

Barry Brooker

Claudia Bluemhuber

Georgia Bayliff

Karol Griffith

Silke Wilfinger

Florian Dargel

Mike Leahy

Gary Leff

Alexander Jooss

Chuck Borden

Mary Goodson

René Besson

Kerry Barden

Kai Kiønig Bortne

Emily Brobst

Andrew Kim

John Christian Rosenlund

Eugenio Battaglia

Hugo Ekornes

Frida R. Oliva

Josh L. Gerson

Suzan Jones

Christian Wieberg-Nielsen

Anne Kulonen

Brian Yuan Zhang

Ulf Olausson

Mattias Perez

Scott Coulter

Max Osadchenko

Paige Lauren Billiot

André Øvredal

Nicole Reddinger

Thriller

Crime

Drama

Paradise Highway

Silver Reel

Grindstone Entertainment Group

Germany

Switzerland

United States of America

Paradise Highway is a knockoff of A Perfect World with Morgan Freeman, Juliette Binoche, and Cameron Monaghan in the Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and Laura Dern roles (respectively), and with Frank Grillo thrown in for good measure — except that the measure in which he’s thrown is not good enough.

This is exactly the kind of throwaway thriller that constitutes Grillo’s accustomed stomping grounds; the problem is that he’s not allowed to stomp at leisure. Reduced to a glorified cameo, the movie shoots itself in the foot by giving the person who’s most comfortable in these environs the least amount of screen time. That, plus the unsound climax that leads to the obligatory sappy, happy ending, all but ruin any chances the film might have had of telling an engaging story. 

That leaves us Freeman and Binoche. With the latter you get what you get; that is, Morgan Freeman being Morgan Freeman, which on this occasion includes him wearing, for some unfathomable reason, a pink fedora. If this is your coup of tea, then more power to you; me, I’ll keep longing for the increasingly unlikely return of Se7en-Morgan Freeman.

As for Juliette Binoche as a lady trucker, well, she’s too smart to play this dumb. I’m not saying all lady truckers are dumb, but this one in particular isn’t especially bright. Consider this: she sells her trailer so she can buy a new life for little Leila (Hala Finley), becoming in the process the girl’s mother figure or big sister or whatever. Now, it’s bad enough they both have to live in the truck cab, but my question is, how is Truck Lady going to make a living now that she has two mouths to feed and no trailer? I mean, this is O. Henry-type stuff if O. Henry were a complete idiot.

She’s not alone, though. I won’t get into the specifics of the climactic confrontation; suffice it to say that if certain people had been patient enough to wait a mere couple of days until Grillo’s character was released from prison, they could have saved themselves a lot of grief — and spared me the nigh two hours of viewing time.

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