Paradise (2004)

My Review

“Paradise” must be one of the worst films of 2004. This made-for-television movie tells the story of an astronaut who claims to have seen God while on one of his space missions, and later becomes a televangelist who builds an empire on this story. The government later investigates and the trouble proceeds from there. Director Frank Pierson and his teleplay writers Norman Steinberg and Richard Christian Matheson have a movie with a thin storyline and terrible writing and lousy directing.

David Strathairn plays Rev. Bobby Paradise, at the top of a cast that maybe was in it for a paycheck, including Barbara Hershey, Anita Barone, Kirk Acevedo, Elaine Stritch, John Patrick Flueger, James Le Gros, Kiersten Warren, James Gammon, Vivienne Benesch, Rick Hoffman, Richard T. Jones, Shea Whigham, and Marie Westbrook.

“Paradise” is actually the pilot episode of a proposed television series for Showtime that did not work out. It was broadcast on Showtime in late 2004 and palmed off to the public on DVD in early 2005.