User reviews

It is too bad this rates only a 5.8 by IMDB users. There is more to this film than the rather low rating. Check out the reviews on this page.

There are some great thought-provoking lines, especially by the Zen Buddhist monk, but also the dialogue between the two men and what happens to their marriages and families. Anyone caught up in the stress of today's modern world (and that is nearly all of us, right?) should watch this movie.

In particular, I recommend that all men watch this. It would be a good film for a men's group or those interested in psychotherapy. You women as well, especially married-career-family women: grab your man and watch and discuss it.

The biggest flaw was that I doubted if two men would REALLY do what they did on that island, with the young blonde and the construction. Too fanciful for me. But the messages in the film WERE reality-based.

The manner that sex was handled was done maturely. It is rated R18 down here in New Zealand, but the sex scenes are mild and not at all pornographic, and the resulting-final ethics are admirable and understandable.

It was refreshing to see a film with unknown actors, that is - without box office mega-stars.

By the way, my wife was half asleep in bed, ill with the 'flu, while I watched this. At first she mumbled that it was a silly B-grade movie, but as it went on she realized that it was actually a worthwhile film with depth.

Jeff (William L. Petersen) and Marty (Gary Cole) are best friends and in a middle age crisis. They spent time remembering their feats in their youths. Jeff is married with Franny (Patricia Charbonneau) and has two daughters. Marty is married with Beth. In their marriages, something is missing or was lost. When they travel to Philippines, they meet Andy (Sheryl Lee), a very different woman, and they both fall in love with her. They have a threesome and decide to leave their families and live together. They are introduced to Kozen (Terence Stamp), a Zen Buddhist monk friend of Andy, and they decide to build a refuge in one isolated beach. After a period together, Jeff misses his family and the relationship of the group deteriorates when Andy falls in love with Jeff. This movie, about uncertainties in the middle age, is very interesting. The story is not corny and I found it pleasant. The character of Jeff, who never finishes anything, always full of doubts, is very human. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Paraíso das Ilusões' (`Paradise of the Illusions')

Wrenching depiction of the male midlife crisis, in full bloom - completely acted out, with a kiss-off to the proverbial "American Dream." Well-cast with great scenery and direction, this film brings the audience into the internal struggle of two 40-something men trying to figure out what they and women really want out of life and relationships. With hopes and desires crumbling all around them, the American Dream not satisfying them, they accept the notion of process and continuous unsettlement, whether back with their families or off in a Buddhist monastery. The problem is not in what they have or do not have - it is with themselves. Very poignant angst captures the postmodern mindset.

Kiss the Sky is about two buddies Jeff and Marty who decide to go to the Phillipines to escape the wives and recapture the "freedom" of their youth. They end up becoming involved with a young Australian Girl played by Sheryl Lee of Twin Peaks fame. William Peterson plays Jeff, the more confident, outspoken, and dashing one and Marty is played by Gary Cole who is more emotionally shattered, but more into the religion of Buddhism.

Although the movie has some unnecessary sex scenes, it has some smartly written dialogue about the middle aged crisis that some men go through. It also shows kind of in a brutal way of what men want in a relationship and what a woman wants and how hard it is for the two sexes to communicate involving the emotions of the heart.

In their attempt to create their own Utopia, Jeff and Marty discover it is harder to turn to reality, then just holding onto the idea itself.

Terence Stamp gives the best performance playing a witty buddhist monk who gives advice to the two men. Patricia Charbonneau gives a great performance and still looks fantastic to this day.

This movie is definitely not for the whole family and I believe will cause discomfort for some men and women who watch due to honest dialogue of the movie and also because it deals with problems that I think a lot of married couples can relate to.

That's all my wife could say while she was watching this movie. And I recommend that men not identify too much with these guys if the want to stay in their SO's good graces. I had to promise that I would not... several times during this movie.

Kiss the Sky has not received a lot of attention and the critics panned it. Nonetheless, it holds your attention, and it actually inspired a "deep" conversation afterwards. And I'm not a deep guy. This is bad TV at its best.

You know, when you sit down and turn on Showtime at 1:30 in the morning, the film you'd expect to see is not the sort that you'd go and tell your mom about. Channel surfing is something I do on occasion, and rarely do I end up stopping to watch an entire movie. This was one of those bizzare exceptions.

There is a great deal of thought in this film. More than you could possibly imagine without seeing it. The dialogue for the film could be transcribed and published as a book that would be regarded as a serious philosophy book of note. The subject of the book would quite simply be the relationships between men and women -- a subject that few have ever dared to discuss in this way, and a subject almost nobody has every intelligently discussed.

Eric Lerner, the writer of the film, has created for us a dialectic work that captivated my spirit and my mind. It is quite clear to me that the 10+ sex scenes in the film were added to appease the production company, and that Mr. Lerner was left with little choice but to present it in this fashion (otherwise he would have been unable to present it at all). This is of course speculation.

The words of the film are powerful, deep, and though prevoking. They bring a great deal into account. One of the most interesting of the modern philosophers (in my opinion), Daniel Quinn (author of Ishmael, My Ishmael, and The Story of B), introduces the "walk away" philosophy which states that to truly exist we must walk away from our lives as we know them. This philosophy is considered on a different level in this film.

The acting is alright. The two leading gentlemen are both capable, but it is the words of Lerner that really brings the meaning of this film home. I cannot go into more detail, because when it comes to philosophy I can only call myself a student -- not a teacher -- not yet. This is a must-see for any philosophy major, or anybody interested in the human dynamic. It will remain on my mind for a long time to come.

Comments from other reviewers lead me to believe that this movie has some resonance for mid-life challenged males. Who am I to argue with that? But for everyone else, this is just pathetic and embarrassing nonsense. A very low budget film that (obviously) went direct to video and never went near a theatre. My husband rented it because the box said something about a "menage a trois" and he thought it would have some sex scenes. Well, it does, but they are so boring and tame that they would be laughed off a daytime soap opera. Sheryl Lee is very attractive in a down-to-earth way, but William Petersen (CSI) and Gary Cole (One Hour Photo) are tired and out of shape and have this hang dog look to them that suggests the whole enterprise is just plain embarrassing...which it is.

I find nothing sympathetic in the plight of fabulously successful and wealthy white upper class men who abandon their wives and children, take their life savings and go to the Phillipines to blow $200,000 on A.) debauchery and B.) building some kind of God-awful bamboo structure that is supposed to be a motel or bed&breakfast or something. The plot and dialogue are so lame and unbelievable it is hard to imagine the actors finding this project palatable so I have to figure they wanted the free trip to the Phillipines. Trust me, this one won't be appearing on anybody's career resume.

Despite the potentially gorgeous surroundings, the cinematography is very poor and of a TV movie quality. It was apparently filmed on location in the Phillipines, but you'd hardly know it, it could have been filmed in Hawaii or even Florida. The use of Leonard Cohen songs throughout is done poorly...the songs don't have any relevance to the actions going on and seem to be just plunked into place.

Terrance Stamp has a small, lame part as a Buddhist monk who is inexplicably allowed to have sex and drink alcohol. There are so many low points in this movie, I would be cruel to list them all, but the worst is when all the main characters are swimming nude, and they stand up in shallow water to greet the monk...we are forced to view their saggy, pudgy naked behinds and trust me, it's not a pretty moment.

A film utterly devoid of sympathetic emotion, and out of touch with any reality I'm aware of (but then I am not a bored, rich white male). The use of titillation (a three way!) to try and sell this bloated tripe is just out and out pathetic. This is a huge waste of time to sit through, even if it pops up on cable, so I suggest you avoid it. You have better things to do with your time.

It is no secret that many forty-something men are dissatisfied with their lives. And it is no big new plot story for them to run off from their married lives to pursue some new life of enlightenment and adventure. For those reviewers that panned this movie, that's all they got out of it. And if that's all there were to this movie, they'd be right to pan it.

Jeff and Marty are very close to each other. It would be impossible for either one of them to act without the other, at least when they start out. They have such a bond that when the much younger love interest shows up, they find a way to share her. The three way sex scenes are tastefully done, and Andy (the delicious Sheryl Lee) is clearly seduced by the idea of having two men in a sense of fun.

But they aren't the same guy. This movie is all about how they play off each other. The self-assured Jeff shows just the right amount of vulnerability, and the diffident Marty shows the right amount of insight. These two guys are different parts of a conflicted soul, too complex for a friendly Dutch monk (Terence Stamp) to guide.

A movie for adults.

"Kiss the Sky" is about two middle-aged best friend family men (Petersen & Cole) who, dissatisfied with the routine of their routine but successful lives, take a business/pleasure trip to the Philippines where the bump into Adny (Sheryl Lee) - in more ways than one - and decide to recapture their lost youth and hedonistic ways and live happily ever after in "paradise". Technically and artistically good, the film loses itself in circular logic and ruminations about interpersonal relationships and other sophomoric nonsense. Nonetheless, it seems to be an earnest attempt to show that you can "never go home" and life is a stream, forever changing, never to run up hill. An okay watch not to be taken seriously.

Dreadful script sinks a good cast. I'm sure the story is serious enough, and I regret that I couldn't hang in there long enough to see Terrence Stamp. And they call women whiny! I can see how Gary Cole got the part he had in "Office Space." He whines exceptionally well, which is all this script gives him to do until he falls down the recapturing-his-youth rabbit hole.

Gary Cole plays a nearly suicidal attorney whose best friend, played by William Petersen, takes on as his rescue project, having been through his own nervous breakdown earlier. The first half hour does not reward with much but a headache. The script to that point apparently never met a class, age or ethnic stereotype it didn't want to exploit, employing only the choicest clichés available. It has no emotional depth, but if it was meant to be satirical, it also lacks the wit to pull that off.

This is "Save the Tiger" as a buddy road flick. That movie gave me a headache too, but I was able to sit through it, because it had the one thing going for it this one didn't, at least in the first half hour, i.e. decent writing.

There are so many other movies and plays that have handled this topic with better grace, even when showing middle-aged men behaving badly.

If I can skip the first half hour, I may be persuaded to sit through it to catch Terrence Stamp's performance, but I'm afraid of what lurks behind that curtain.

My one word review: Blecchh!

I picked up this movie because I have become interested in the career of Willim L. Petersen and wanted to see as much of his film work as possible.

I have read the comments here and do not agree that this is mostly a man's movie. I am a 50 year old woman and have spent some time questioning my life choices over the past year. I enjoyed seeing the mid-life crisis issue from a man's perspective; sort of like I had been allowed into a secret club for a little while. Clearly men and women are just wired up differently, making communication difficult if not impossible at times. I am tickled to have had access to this little glimpse of the way some men think and feel.

As for William Petersen, well, the role of Jeff was a good role for him, allowing him to be charming and gritty at the same time. Anyone who is interested in Petersen's acting will enjoy this movie for that alone.

This film is a somewhat contrived but not uninteresting portrayal of the midlife crisis/adventure of two middle-aged men who are living the American dream and yet are feeling spiritually deadened and untrue to themselves. Longing for the freedom of their youth, they find a way to visit the Philippines, where temptations of opium and sex are found. They wrestle with their predicament, try to create heaven on earth for themselves, but they stumble on their inner conflicts.

The core of the film concerns issues around the human condition, bio-sexual determinism, and the quest for happiness. A Buddhist monk enters the scene and presents his take on things. The film is not comforting and romantic but sobering and 'existential'. If you wrestle with the viability of existential idealism or the demands and disillusionments of a spiritual path, this film may be of particular interest.

The acting and production are so-so (B-movie), but the existentiality and themes made it worthwhile for me. 7/10

A couple of whiny boomer guys p*** and moan about how horrible it is to have money and a great family, chuck it all for sex and drugs in some 3rd world hell hole, then wonder why it's not satisfying. Throw in some Philosophy 101 and a dash of Penthouse Forum and you get this mess of a movie. Yet, somehow, some way, it held my attention all the way through. So for that alone, it gets a 3.

I don't know who the person was who wrote the summary, but he/she did this movie no justice by dismissing it as a couple of guys on a mid life alcohol/drug fueled crisis. My take: I've been in the video biz for 20 years because I love movies--especially those amazing auteur classics Hollywood somehow let slide for so long in the 70s-- and I'm now 48, comfortable, guilty, confused, and feeling totally misunderstood, misjudged, and about to give up. Then I run across "Kiss the Sky", this incredible movie that actually tries to honestly describe the emptiness inherent in being a successful upper middle class (probably white) American Male. How many buddy movies have you seen like "City Slickers" or "Very Bad Things" that almost get that ineffable feeling of loss and despair right only to cop out with lowest common denominator humor or cheap sentiment? "Kiss the Sky", given the times and given the state of the movie industry is the closest we'll ever get. Deftly sidestepping cliches and easy answers, this tale of 2 middle aged guys who are smart enough to know that their material success doesn't mean that much and isn't really their doing anyway goes bravely if imperfectly where no movie that I have ever seen has gone before. ("Leaving Las Vegas" has some resonance but it's ultimately a one man story, not a generational statement.) I don't know where this movie came from or how it got made or who was nuts enough to think it had any commercial viability (it doesn't except if it's hawked as a hard R straight-to-video cheapie, and the person who wants that will be disappointed by this.) Anyway, if I'm speaking to you, watch this movie!

A marginally new wrinkle on the "letting the days go down" theme: successful, men-at-mid-life...confronted by debt and loveless marriages seek to recapture the magical awareness/oneness with LIFE. The script & the cast's performances, however, elevate this particular approach above the norm.

This feature should have been released theatrically in the USA. The sexual scene(s) was tastefully and artfully done. The Director, Roger Young did a wonderful job. Superb acting for Petersen and Cole, and all the cast including Terence Stamp. The location where the feature was shot was beautiful. I do not understand why this gem of a movie was kept a secret. The story is about a couple of middle class husbands, who did nothing but work, to provide wealth and material things for their wives and children. In the end these two men question themselves whether that is all they are supposed to be, cash cows for theirs families. What is the reward for working so hard? Their wives were still discontented? This movie is great!

This movie earns from me a 10 out of 10, with superb script and music sound track. You could call it an adult version of "The Beach". Set in an exotic location the story follows the adventures of two mid-life executives searching their souls for the meaning of life and their lives.There will be a lot of people including myself who can identify with this film. Why this picture scores so highly is the wondrous script examining Buddha/Zen philosophy.Don't be put off by that...as the scenario is totally absorbing done with humor, intelligence and thoughtfulness. A believable "love triangle" is on one level at the heart of the story, or to put it more bluntly a 3-some, and my only 'gripe' about the film is that it is one of those(perhaps rare) instances where more scenes focusing on the intimacy would of been appropriate , but who knows if on cable some scenes were cut. The acting is solid , tender and wonderfully underplayed. But the music score..well, fantastic; no other word for it and I for one will be racing around looking to buy the music CD. Lucky I found this "gem" purely by chance on TV, its opening with the enchanting music is mesmerizing and what follows equally compelling. Seems like Leonardo found the wrong beach!

This movie is a lot better than it is given credit for. Yes, I tend to be partial toward William Petersen's works, but this movie had an interesting story line and unexpected twists.

It begins with two middle-aged men that are not happy with their current lives. A business trip to the Philipines gives them a taste of what they are missing and what they wish they could have. After a few rushed decisions and what they think is a good idea, they decide to stay in the Philipines in an attempt to create their own paradise. When they fall for the same woman, however, problems will arise and they will be pulled back into reality.

If you're looking for a romantic movie with a "happily ever after" ending, this isn't the one for you. If you like the angst-drama type that resembles the real world, you should definitely see this movie.

I accidentally watched this movie around four or five years ago on TV as I spent my time away searching for something to watch on a friends house in the Middle East. I wasn't even focusing much on the plot then or whatsoever though the few naked scenes which I had the luck of seeing first of all the other scenes kept me interested enough so as not to switch channels for a while. I found it not really my type then (because then I was just in my mid thirties?). What interested me more afterward as this movie rolled on was that the language spoken in the background (aside from English) and the scenery seemed to be all too familiar. I'm a Filipino and hey, they were speaking Tagalog and those were places and items from the Philippines..the beaches, the markets, the festivals, the foot-pedaled trikes, passenger jeepneys etc., etc... In particular I was puzzled by their depiction and use of the Taal volcano island on Taal lake which they seemed to call Lake Toba in the film. Well back then, I already had this grand illusion that such place is the most beautiful of all places in the world (and I did travel a lot worldwide). The movie at least jived with my opinion that that place is paradise literally (though of course as the monk has said we create our own paradises or we pursue our paradises in vain?). Anyway these days I searched again for this movie for another value since I turned 40. It really appealed to us mid-lifers- white or Asian perhaps. Enjoy watching- its about you if you are more like my age and male of course. Though of course I don't approve of the threesome. And I love Sheryl Lee, I wonder where she is now.

This is possibly the only intelligent US movie ever made with a menage-a-trois theme. It also involves some metaphysical rudiments that are rather well presented. The Philippine locations are attractive and rarely enough featured in movies to provide additional interest. Sheryl Lee is drop-dead gorgeous and does an excellent job with her role. The two male leads have a bit simpler task, but they too come across very well. Terence Stamp in the role of a Dutch monk is a blast. A thoughtful, well-paced jewel of a movie that did not get the boxoffice success it should have had.

It's got it all. The two main characters on a mid-life quest for the meaning of life encounter women, drugs, alcohol, travel and spirituality. Fun yet somewhat deep. Great acting and nicely put together. It really struck a cord with me.