Rating this movie an 8, and thinking of increasing it to a 9, by not comparing it to the universe of big budget A-list Hollywood movies, but by thinking back to the ABC After School Special movies we adults of a certain age were raised on.
After School movies did not need a hero fighting space aliens, or Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe creating an air-tight masterpiece for the ages. After School Special movies were direct, simple, and to the point. Each one had a goal to provoke some thoughts, share an experience, and not be tied down by the distractions of extreme realism.
3 DOORS DOWN FROM PARADISE is, for lack of better words, a fairy tail story about Brandon, a grown young man with fairly profound autism who, as a ward of the state, is removed from his agency group home and provided with his own individual apartment. And soon as this scenario unfolds, we see that Brandon new environment is one with angels and demons (beyond his own mental demons).
3 DOORS DOWN FROM PARADISE could go in many directions with this set-up, and as stated at the beginning, if the viewer accepts it in the spirit of an After School Special movie, and let it do it's thing, it will bring you back to a time of your first movie watching.
That said,,it should be made clear that this is not a movie for children, this is not a children's movie, but for me it was a movie for how we are now as adults.
