Exit to Eden (1994)

Directed by Garry Marshall

Runtime: 113 minutes

I live in the only place on Earth that banned this movie. Way back in 1994 the Saskatchewan Film and Video Classification Board banned this film because it was felt the movie viewing audience of Saskatchewan was not ready BDSM romantic comedy. It is also a rumored that the film board banned this film without viewing it. Regardless of what happened, the Saskatchewan Film and Video Classification Board was shut down and an amazingly bad movie got more free publicity than it really deserved.

We are first introduced to a young Elliot (the older Elliot played by Paul Mercurio) as he get spanked by his hot house keeper. This incident sparks his interest in BDSM and is the reason he goes to the Island. The Island is BDSM, swinger club, sex therapy clinic and sex workshop for women all rolled into one. So Elliot gets interviewed by Dr. Halifax (played by Hector Elizondo) for admission to the Island.

Elliot meets the great looking but bad assassin Nina (played by Iman) and the never photographed smuggler Omar (played by Stuart Wilson). These two are diamond smugglers who Elliot has the misfortune of photographing.  This leads to introduction to the LAPD officers Fred (played by Dan Aykroyd rocking an amazing porn mustache) and Sheila (played by Rosie O'Donnell) who are after Omar and Nina.

Fred is Joe Friday who gets squeamish when anything involving sex and Sheila will not shut up. Sheila is the narrator for all the cop parts of the plot and the character herself just goes out of her way to be obnoxious and annoying. It was at this point that I started drinking.

So Fred, Shelia, Omar and Nina all start the slow race to get to the Island so they can find Elliot and his photographs. Fred will go to the Island posing as maintenance staff, while Sheila, Nina and Omar will pose as guests.  Back on the romantic plot, Elliot and the other BDSM enthusiasts have a nudity scene while more explanation is given about the Island. This happens a lot in the romantic plot.

On the Island we are introduced to Mistress Lisa (played by Dana Delany). All the new citizens of the Island are required to present themselves topless to Lisa and the guests of the Island for their approval. Elliot is disruptive and he is put on a work detail and out of sight of the comedy plot. At this point the comedy plot just pads out the movie. It is mostly Sheila alternating between being horny and uncomfortable and Fred being weirded out by everything happening around him.

Back in the romantic plot, Elliot gets a one on one training session with Mistress Lisa. This leads to a tame softcore sex scene. In the morning Lisa becomes worried she may be falling in love with Elliot and prepares to send him home. It is explained in flashbacks that she became a dominatrix because she had bad relationships and by being in control made her problems go away. Also being a dominatrix means you can not be in love with someone or something just as stupid. My interest and the plot stopped caring at the same point.

So for no reason Elliot talks Lisa into running away with him to New Orleans. The comedy plot not wanting to be left behind follows after a quick and pointless cat fight between Sheila and Nina.

In New Orleans, the romantic plot has more nudity and then a quick trip to a antebellum estate. At the estate the comedy plot comes to an end and arrests Omar. Back in the romantic plot, Lisa get frightened about losing control because she hears a victim of domestic abuse filing a police report. So she leaves Elliot and returns back to the Island.   

Elliot is beside himself until Sheila tells him where Lisa ran to. So Elliot returns to the Island and gets himself tied up in a tuxedo to prove to Lisa that she can be in a relationship and still be a controlling dominatrix. So the two of them get married in off screen narration and everyone lives happily ever after. The movie finally ends.

The movie feels like that half way through filming someone realized that it was a BDSM movie with romance so they tried to pad it out with painfully bad comedy. Also this is an adaptation of an Anne Rice novel of the same name and she refuses to talk about this movie. The only three positive things about this movie are that is well done on a technical level, the actors are trying to make the horrible script to work and Dan Aykroyd's porn mustache.

MVT:

 
 Porn Mustache!!!

Make or Break: The make for me is porn mustache and having Cuban rum as a co-pilot. As for breaks, the rest of the movie.

Score: 1.25 out of 10