Guest House Paradiso

Guest House Paradiso is a 1999 British slapstick black comedy film written by and starring comic duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, and directed by Edmondson—his directorial debut for a feature film.

The film is a spin-off of their BBC comedy television series Bottom (in some territories, the DVD cover refers to it as The Bottom Movie). The key difference in the characters is in their surnames: Mayall's character, known as "Richard Richard" in the TV show, is here referred to as "Richard Twat" (although he angrily insists on the pronunciation "Thwaite"). Edmondson's character changes from "Edward Elizabeth Hitler" in the TV/live show to "Edward Elizabeth Ndingombaba". Despite this difference, both characters retain the same personalities as their TV counterparts. The film was made at Ealing Studios and on location on the Isle of Wight, off Military Road A3055, between the villages of Afton and Brighstone.

Plot
Richard "Richie" Twat and Edward "Eddie" Elizabeth Ndingombaba run the worst guest house in the United Kingdom. Their staff include a chef, an idiotic drunkard and an illegal immigrant who is unable to cook, and a waiter, who is implied to have checked into a psychiatric hospital. Both leave because of nonpayment for their employment, with the latter quitting because of the verbal abuse from his boss. The guests, including Mr Johnson, who reside in the pair's hotel are thoroughly dissatisfied by the poor service, and eventually decide to leave, except for the senile Mrs Foxfur, who lives there.

Life seems bleak for Richie and Eddie, until it seemingly improves with the arrival of the "Nice family", headed by Mr Nice, and the famous Italian actress Gina Carbonara. The Nice family are staying as it is the cheapest hotel in the country, and Gina's decision to stay in the grotty house is primarily down to her need to seek safety from her ill-tempered fiancé Gino Bolognese. Without the chef, the duo are forced to cook meals for the guests; luckily, however, Richie comes across some fish which fell off a military lorry, heading away from the nearby nuclear power station. Unknown to both him and Eddie, the fish had been contaminated by a radiation leak due to the power station's poor maintenance and equally poor safety regulations.

Thanks to the pair promoting her stay to attract more guests, Gino eventually finds her, and after an elopement between the two, Gino attempts to rape Gina. Meanwhile, hours after serving the radioactive fish, everybody becomes violently ill, projectile-vomiting at high velocity and in huge quantities — all except for Gina Carbonara, the only guest who did not eat the fish due to Gino eating it all for himself. In a getaway, Richie and Eddie quickly pack their bags, and are serendipitously reunited with Gina, who they escape with. In an act of spontaneous nausea, every guest projectile-vomits on Gino at once, forcing him backwards out through a window and off a cliff into the ocean, killing him. Government agents arrive to hush up the incident and give Eddie and Richie £10 million pounds, first-class tickets to the Caribbean, and new identities for both them and Gina, in exchange for their silence over the leak. The three accept the offer and head to the Caribbean and start a beach bar called "Beach Bar Paradisdo". In the film's final scene, Eddie winks to the camera after commenting "How lucky [Gino] was the only fatality. Otherwise there'd be a moral question-mark hanging over our escape."

Cast
Rik Mayall

Ade Edmondson

Vincent Cassel

Hélène Mahieu

Bill Nighy

Kate Ashfield

Simon Pegg

Fenella Fielding

Lisa Palfrey

Steve O'Donnell

James D'Arcy

Kate Loustau

Trivia
Prior to the film's production in 1998, Rik Mayall was involved in a quad bike accident, landing him in a coma and nearly killing him, and therefore making the film studio have to choose another candidate for the role of Richard "Richie" Twat. During his hospitalization, Mayall and Edmondson began writing the script for the movie and were inspired to write the hotel backdrop after their stays at some during their tours of the Bottom Live shows.

The line Ade recites is similar to one in television episode "Apocalypse", "Running all the way".

When Richie asked Eddie ''"Are you sure this is gonna work?" to which Eddie asks "Is the Pope a Catholic?, ''The line Ade recites is similar to one in television episode "Finger".

The line Ade recites is similar to one in television episode "Parade", "Brace Yourself".

The line Rik recites is similar to Ade says to one in "Blackadder Goes Forth" episode "Private Plane", "How Amusing".