The Perfect Host
Review By Sharon Foss
When you are on the run from the law, it’s common to fall into desperate measures. Stealing, lying…you know, what you normally do during the actual act of law breaking. How tiring that must be to continue such deviant acts long after the original transgression should have ended. The law breaker from the movie The Perfect Host, however, is more than meets the eye. There’s not always a reason to root for the bad guy in these movies, but there is here. But who is the bad guy?
The Perfect Host is from the genius mind of Nick Tomnay (who also directed) and Krishna Jones. Constant surprises await you from the moment you hit play.
This movie’s tattooed bad boy John has broken the law by robbing a bank. Now he’s on the run, or on the limp because of his injury, and decides he needs a house to hide out in. Unfortunately for Warwick (David Hyde Pierce of “Frasier”), it’s his home that John weasels his way into. Warwick is a well-to-do man with established taste and a refined palette. He is about to host his friends for a dinner party that he has been preparing for all day. He is the perfect host, one might say.
Let’s the turn the tables, yet again. Bank robber John lies his way into unsuspecting Warwick’s home, only to have the tables turned on him. Warwick isn’t who he appears to be. Who’s in control here? Could this be Warwick’s last dinner party…or John’s?
For the first time with reviewing a movie, I want to reveal the great secrets of the film. But I won’t…I am restraining myself, which means you have to see The Perfect Host. It’s hard to write a review about this movie because the storyline is so intricate, weaving in and of itself, that saying just one word too many would give away what is truly magnificent about it. I’d love to meet Tomnay and Jones who put this masterpiece together and shake their hands. A job well done is one in which keeps my eyes peeled on the screen and my mouth agape, which is just what this one did.
I find it a shame that movies like this never see the big screen. Crawford and Pierce are a dynamic duo, going head-to-head in a battle of wills and an even bigger battle of mental wit. Combining Crawford’s bad boy, Ray Liotta-looking good guy gone bad with Pierce’s deranged and gentile manner is a cinematic orgasm for the senses. I only wish others would write and produce films with such flair, as opposed to the crap we have to see in the theaters every weekend. Where are the rest of the great unknown films? Don’t let The Perfect Host go unnoticed!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334553/
