Title: The Perfect Host

Opens: July 1, 2011

It’s every law-abiding, criminal-hating American’s fantasy, isn’t it? Guy comes to burgle your house, overcomes you, threatens to kill you, puts serious crimps in your dignity. In a weak moment, the intruder is overcome by the owner of the residence, is tied up, and is made sport of. An eye for an eye. We saw this theme in action in David Slade’s movie “Hard Candy,” wherein Hayley Stark, played by Ellen Page, is a fourteen-year-old girl who meets a charming thirty-two year old photographer on the ‘net. She suspects that he’s a pedophile, goes to his house, slips him a vodka-and-orange drink, ties him up, and tortures him. In a case that resembles this revenge scenario, Warwick Wilson (David Hyde Pierce) opens the door to John Taylor (Clayne Crawford), a bank robber who seeks to treat his bleeding foot. His life threatened, Warwick charms the fellow into accepting a glass of red wine which is drugged. Robber passes out, gets tied up, and the obligatory game of cat-and-mouse begins.

“The Perfect Host” may be similar to the Ellen Page vehicle but it’s more complex, involving interchanges of more than two characters and thereby is not simply a photographed play. Writer-director Nick Tomnay and co-writer Krishna Jones have fashioned superb dialogue affording homeowner and intruder witty repartee during the latter’s captivity. What’s more the movie is filled with so many unexpected twists that any attempt to write a thorough synopsis would spoil the film for prospective viewers, so…suffice to say that we see the bank robbery only as momentary flashbacks, choppily edited, while Tomnay present a full cast of characters who attend the eight o’clock dinner that in Warwick’s smashing West Coast residence (credit Ricardo Jattan’s excellent production design). You may wonder how Warwick can afford digs such as these, particularly when his profession is revealed, but everything is tied up neatly and professionally by the crew operating on a low budget and shooting the whole caboodle in just three weeks.

Clayne Crawford as the bank robber who resembles Tony Curtis and Ray Liotta is up to David Hyde Pierce’s challenging performance, while Pierce is at least as witty here as he had been on TV’s “Frasier,” in his 1982 Broadway debut in Christopher Durang’s “Beyond Therapy” and in the unfortunately short-lived Moliere-esque “La Bete” which if I recall correctly closed within a week. A Shakespearean actor as well, Pierce anchors the movie as the guy who turns out to be other than who you think he is. Clever script, fine ensemble acting, sharp direction.

Unrated. 93 minutes. (c) 2011 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

Technical: B+

Written by: Harvey Karten