Paraiso Travel ( USA 2007 116 min. dir: Simon Brand, cast: Aldemar Correa, Angelica Blandon, Magarita Rosa de Francisco, John Leguizamo).

Can a movie be a big screen bore and a small screen jewel? Marlon searches for his lost love named Reina (Queen) on the mean streets of a borough named Queens.Columbian director Simon Brand and an all Latin cast shoot an American movie in New York City with subtitles.

Marlon arrives with Reina after she has seduced him into abandoning their squalid life in Medellin, Colombia, for the glitter of NYC. He loses her almost immediately and spends the movie obsessed with finding her. He is not only searching for Reina but for himself: and the obsession with the first blinds him as he stumbles in the second. How else could he turn away from a gorgeous thing like Magarita Rosa de Francisco? She’s the heart of the picture and magnificent. On the small screen you can study every move of her body, every emotion that clouds across her face. On the big screen, you’d be out buying popcorn.

John Leguizamo turns up here and gives an idea for a flat screen double feature: Paraiso Travel followed by Where God Left his Shoes. This 2007 movie traces a homeless family trekking to find shelter in the same hostile boroughs. What is it with the outer boroughs? I always thought charity and compassion began there. From these two films you’d think Manhattan, by contrast, was full of innkeepers with warm smiles.

Many cross-the-border films detail the trials of the trip, but few talk about the travail of the destination. Paraiso Travel is a New Yorqueno movie that shows life under the Elevated where Roosevelt Boulevard meets Junction Boulevard and where the last intersection was Tecun Uman on the Mexico-Guatemala border.