Review of The Perfect Host (2010) by Galen A — 26 Oct 2013

This movie has an intriguing premise, and bits of a very fun performance by David Hyde Pierce, one of the most under-used and under-appreciated actors around, but after a lively if uneven first hour it completely crashes and burns in the final 30 minutes. This is one of the worst third acts I've ever seen in a movie; it was so jarring that it didn't even feel like the same movie. If you decide to watch this film, just watch the first hour and then turn it off; it would honestly be better that way.

The movie has a somewhat Hitchcockian premise - a bank robber on the run (Clayne Crawford) has been injured and is looking for somewhere to hide out for the night, and ends up conning his way into the house of the effete, educated Warwick (Pierce), who happens to be preparing for a fancy dinner party. The robber thinks it will be easy to make things go away with this seemingly soft fellow, but it turns out Warwick has a bit of a darker side than anyone could have suspected.

The first hour of the movie, while definitely uneven, maintains a steady sense of grim, absurd humor. It becomes clear that Warwick is off his rocker, but just how crazy he is and in what ways remain a little too vague. Still, David Hyde Pierce has a great deal of fun in the role, and some of his perverse enjoyment inevitably rubs off on the viewer. Crawford is fine as the robber, though consistently upstaged by Pierce. But, after the twist that completely makes the first hour of the movie, there eventually follow about five more twists that completely and utterly wreck it in the final half hour. By the end it's like you're not even watching a movie in the same genre, let alone the film you were watching before. It's confusing, pointless, and just kind of awful. It feels like they didn't know how to properly end what the movie had been building up to, so instead made up something completely different and generic and bland. It does not work.

It's sad, too; the first hour of the movie really is kind of inspired and devilish and enjoyable. If it had kept up that quality throughout the whole film, this would be a pretty solid movie. As it is, though, it goes so far off the rails that I can't ultimately recommend it.