TICKET TO HEAVEN Movie Review

Canada's Ralph L. Thomas directed this bombastic but engrossing and often nastily funny portrait of a troubled young man (Nick Mancuso) whose unhappiness over a romantic breakup leads him straight into the waiting arms of a religious cult. Ticket to Heaven compresses his entire cycle—despair, vulnerability, indoctrination, kidnapping by family, deprogramming—into a whiz-bang, highly one-sided 109 minutes. Many of the performers in Ticket to Heaven, including Saul Rubinek, Kim Cattrall, Meg Foster, and Mancuso, went on to Hollywood success, but the movie's most riveting performance is given by the legendary Canadian stage actor R.H. Thomson, playing the “tough love”-style deprogrammer. Thomson reportedly avoids the limelight and most offers of higher-profile roles; his hypnotic performance here of a man who's as obsessed and perhaps as unbalanced as his prey offers a rare chance to see him wail. From the novel Moonwebs by Josh Freed. Winner of Canada's Genie Awards for Best Film, Actor (Mancuso), and Supporting Actor (Rubinek).

NEXT STOP … Scanners, Videodrome, Exotica

1981 (PG) 109m/C CA Nick Mancuso, Meg Foster, Kim Cattrall, Saul Rubinek, R.H. Thomson, Jennifer Dale, Guy Boyd, Paul Soles; D: Ralph L. Thomas; W: Anne Cameron; C: Richard Leiterman; M: Micky Erbe. Genie Awards ‘82: Best Actor (Mancuso), Best Film, Best Supporting Actor (Rubinek). VHS MGM