Writer/director Frank E. Flowers makes "Haven" in the disjointed, jumped-up style resembling his production team's more successful "Crash", which is supposed to be this film's selling point. But, "Haven" only emphasizes what goes wrong with this type of picture. Instead of fresh, it's frazzled. As the story lines wobble around, the cameras leave a relatively engaging Victor Rasuk (as Fritz).Then, reminding you of "Crash" connections, the film's hooded "Romeo and Juliet" storyline takes hold. "On the idyllic shores of the Cayman Islands, Shy (Orlando Bloom) and Andrea (Zoe Saldana) share a secret her parents can never know - they are in love. But a night of passion leads to the discovery of their secret and a devastating act of vengeance by Andrea's brother (Anthony Mackie)."Meanwhile, a shady American businessman (Bill Paxton) has fled with his daughter to the Islands to avoid federal prosecution, only to be drawn into a dangerous web of deceit. As lives intersect and truths are revealed, a chain reaction of violence is set in motion that will determine whether love can survive the fall of paradise," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. It all ends by… stopping.**** Haven (9/11/04) Frank E. Flowers ~ Orlando Bloom, Zoe Saldana, Bill Paxton, Victor Rasuk

What a horrible movie. It's pretentious and wannabe cool, but the video-clip style editing and constant jumping in time just serve to annoy and confuse. The main problem is the depressing story though. It's about miserable people who all end up miserable, with no redeeming features such as an interesting character study or something like that. It appears to be an attempt at having many seemingly unrelated plot lines coming together at the end like a jigsaw puzzle, but the connections are so tenuous and arbitrary that that aspect falls entirely flat.Utterly pointless, except for people who enjoy watching misery. The three out of ten is purely for the location, which slightly redeems the movie as something to watch for the pretty pictures.

A truly remarkable movie in any number of ways. The cast does a great job---Bloom delivers one of his best performances so far, but there really is not a single weak act that would stand out. The writing is tight and complex---the movie introduces a fair number of very different characters that we need to care about in order for it to work, but they do pull it off, and that is quite a considerable achievement in itself.The story is told in a nonlinear way, and in fact there is a phase of the movie during which you might wonder how this whole thing fits together. But then the threads are pulled together nicely and artfully, with a lot of attention to detail that a viewer will be delighted to discover, sometimes perhaps on repeated viewing. Things fall into place, are seen to have a meaning with respect to other parts of the narrative, and quickly the film becomes complete and whole.Finally, the photography is beautiful in those places where it should be, and gritty in others.With great acts, an excellent script, and beautiful pictures, there is really not much wrong with this movie. I have never been to the Caymans, so I cannot comment on the authenticity, but judging from other comments here, they even got that one right, too.

Try and get over the seemingly drug induced headache manner with which the movie is filmed and behind that shell you'll find quite a good story. At first when I began watching this, my head hurt so much I almost stopped watching like 15 minutes into it, but as soon as I realised that the spasming film shots were intentional and very key to the plot, I got used to it. Nevermind the fact that I had to use the English subtitles button for some of the thick Cayman Lingo, the film-makers must have realised that this would be a problem as well because it wasn't too long before I noticed that they too had added in their own involuntary subtitles & translations in many scenes. And the drug use + the swearing, my goodness, trust me it's not for the faint hearted.But beside all of that, there is the story of a shady business man and his lawyer who have come to the Cayman Islands to seek refuge from the FBI due to their bad dealings. As a footnote for those who don't know, the Cayman Islands are infamous for their 18th Century imposed "No Taxation" laws which they have extended to none native patrons (hence the HAVEN that has been provided for the business men). Such over friendly and kind gestures turn out to be what has contributed to the decline in the standard of living in the Cayman Islands, with all kinds of crime and corruption on the rise. The movie is shot in such as way that, you're viewing the end of the movie within the first few minutes, you just don't know it yet. Everything is pieced in later, because everything and everybody are connected. Though the film is a melting pot of all the characters it showcases, it all really belongs to Bloom, his acting in this is just superb that for once you see past his boyish charm to his talent. Saldana also shows some promise.The business man Carl Ridley (played by Bill Paxton) and his daughter Pippa (played by Agnes Bruckner) try to start over but things go horribly awry when Pippa, the wayward teen teams up with another wayward Island teen named Fritz ( played by Victor Rasuk) and soon get into trouble. Fritz, while at Pippa's house spies on Carl stashing away a ton of stolen money, then alerts some Island thugs about the dough and they begin to make plans on how to steal it. Meanwhile, a fisherman named Shy (played by Orlando Bloom finally in his element) has his hands full trying to keep his head while romancing Andrea (played by Zoe Saldana) the daughter of his boss. The problem for the two lovers is that Shy is White & Andrea is Black, add to that the fact that Andrea's brother Hammer (played by Anthony Mackie) can't stand Shy + the fact that Andrea is the boss's daughter. Shy, eye candy to the highest order also attracts the attention of Patrick (played by Lee Ingleby) who turns out to be the son of Mr. Allen (played by Stephen Dillane) Carl Ridley's lawyer. Bobby Cannavale plays the head of the FBI team hot on Ridley and Allen's trail, you'll have to watch to find out who sells who out and who is the wiser. Serena Scott Thomas, Joy Bryant and Rachel Miner round out the cast with noteworthy co-starring roles.