The Perfect Host was programmed at Fantasia a few years back,
but I didn’t buy a ticket for fear that the film would be too broad for my
tastes. Even after picking up a DVD copy in some random bargain bin, I was
still convinced that it would prove to be a generic, albeit well-written
thriller set in camera, sort of a character study focused on the limited
interactions between a psychotic host and his guests. In reality, the film
proved to be even broader than I first thought, crossing over at will between psycho
thriller and serious crime drama in a confused bid to create artificial
depth for itself, and to forcedly lengthen the runtime. The whole thing isn’t
even set in camera. That would’ve been way too hard to sustain. The narrative rather spills all over the place, helplessly trying to seep into every crevasse
of our resolve, leaving TV actor David Hyde Pierce squarely in charge of
piloting a vehicle headed for nowhere in particular.
The premise
here is quite familiar, but given some fake, unneeded depth thanks to the
aforementioned mix-up of film genres. At first, we are acquainted with John, a
petty criminal on the run from the LAPD after a bank robbery. When his license
plate number is mentioned on the radio, the man suddenly starts feeling unsafe
about driving around, and decides to find a place to hide instead. That’s how
he ends up on Warwick’s posh porch. By pretending that they share a mutual
friend, the bank robber even manages to get inside Warwick’s luxurious house,
eavesdropping on the preparation of a very special dinner party. At first, the
courteous host seems candid enough, lapping up every one of John’s incongruous
answers to his incessant questions. At some point, however, his guest is backed
into a corner as he starts running out of lies. That is when his incompetence
finds refuge in violence.
John is just a run-of-the-mill thief, or is he?
You probably won't care about the answer...
Picking up
a butcher’s knife, John takes Warwick hostage, unaware that he has been sipping
dope-laced wine for a while now. You
see, Warwick is a very resourceful psycho, and he’s been ready for John even before he
ended up on his doorstep, having prepared a special bottle for the occasion. Momentarily waking up from his forced slumber,
John then finds himself tied to a chair around the dinner table where his host
is entertaining a bevy of imaginary socialites. And from this pivotal role
reversal, the plot starts to unfold...
and crumble. The victim has now become the victimizer, and our sympathy
for the home invader starts being increasingly solicited through a series of
flashbacks exposing John’s troubled past as well as the sentimental details of
his unlawful scheme. This opens up the way for a dreary second half in which
the interplay between the hunter and its prey spills into the shockingly
familiar realm of police thrillers as John is let loose by his captor only to
be chased through the ugly streets of L.A.
How can I
convey the appreciation one should derive from this vaguely intriguing little
thriller? I guess that it depends on one’s appreciation of David Hyde Pierce
(an actor mostly famous for his long-lasting role as Dr. Niles Crane on Frasier). After all, the man is directly
in charge of propelling the narrative here, with baby-faced Clayne Crawford
being a mere cog in Warwick’s schemes. As for the supporting cast, it is not
even given the opportunity to shine, being instead relegated to a bunch of bit
parts. In fact, all of the peripheral characters that they portray are almost
detrimental to the plot, as they gluttonously devour screen time without adding
much to the narrative but some unnecessary twists.
To be honest, everything
around Warwick seems like mere artifice, except for his luxurious living/dining
room, whose depth proves surprisingly useful, even crucial to the mise-en-scène
by allowing the director to alternatively conceal and reveal the characters’
position in space. The rich locale thus becomes a theatrical space
tailor-made to befit the needs of an in-camera thriller. Once John is tied-up
and at the mercy of Warwick, all suspense becomes insured by the two
characters’ lines of sight and relative position to one another. This is
emphasized by the fact that the host often loses track of his guest, allowing
him to wiggle out of his restraints, or to equip a crucial prop. That is how
suspense is maintained, by locating the action in a finite space and making the
relationship between captor and captive the center of attention. Further
digressions are only harmful to the integrity of the thriller.
Warwick's dining room is a perfect space
for a thriller to unfold.
Being the
cornerstone of tension-building that it is, it’s a shame that the living room
set is eventually shelved in order to pursue the secondary narrative thread
elaborated in the first half of the film, the one concerning John’s sad
money-making scheme and his running from the law. I lost almost all interest in
the film immediately after the narrative shift that brought the action away
from the psycho’s abode and into the ugly streets of L.A. for it meant that all
suspense had suddenly evaporated in favor of pursuing an awkwardly dramatic
story of abused trust and blind dedication. To me, the very raison-d’être of
the film had suddenly vanished, and its edge suddenly become dull as the
narrative started to thread more and more familiar waters. If the surprisingly
dull twist ending is any indication, the narrative should’ve ended far earlier
than it did…
Contrarily
to most thrillers, or horror films for that matter, The Perfect Host is very intriguing during the initial exposition
of the characters, but far less so once we get acquainted with them. Despite
some strong performances by the two leads, who portray their characters to the
best of their abilities, one can hardly overlook the poor conception of these
characters. Hence, it is the first half-hour of the film that provides the most
thrills. The mystery is still whole and impenetrable at that point and the
interplay between Pierce and Crawford is at the height of its complexity. With
both men playing nice guy by throwing fake smiles and good manners around, with
Warwick’s initial candor appearing almost childlike and John’s violent nature
being only slightly veiled by his awkward farce, the perspective of an
explosive confrontation between them, which would reveal their true character,
becomes increasingly unnerving. It is only when the masks have fallen that the
shortcomings of the screenplay are revealed along with the director’s inability
to maintain suspense throughout.
The initial encounter between John and Warwick
is the highlight of the film.
The first
narrative feature that sticks out like a sore thumb is just how overdetermined
Warwick’s psychosis actually is. Seeing how convinced he is that imaginary
people are interacting with him, it takes a real stretch of the imagination to
figure out how he can be so composed in society and able to maintain a
high-ranking position in his work place. Most importantly, that psychosis feeds
a certain compulsion he has to constantly digress from his dialogue with John
in order to “entertain” other guests floating around his living room. This
completely dispels the illusion of control necessary to make his victim’s plight
seem inescapable and to subsequently heighten the sense of tension one might
derive from that plight. In the case of John, we are also asked to make some
arduous perceptual contortions in order to accept a tear-inducing background
that comes in stark contrast with his initial brutality and lack of refinement. Luckily,
the plot doesn’t unfold in a purely linear fashion. But while this helps
complexify the plot, it often breaks some hard-earned sense of tension by
generating cuts away from the living room and into random locales with various
degrees of relevance. In turn, this creates a hodge-podge of important dramatic
issues that will need to be addressed in an all-encompassing finale that
diminishes the impact of every one of those important dramatic issues.
In the end,
The Perfect Host is a misguided
attempt at creating a singular thriller by mashing up ill-defined genre
boundaries and spiking a would-be realistic crime drama with some eccentric
humor. Unfortunately, David Hyde Pierce is the only actor in the cast that
seems able to handle the subtler aspects of the screenplay by delivering some
outrageous lines of dialogue with just the right amount of self-consciousness.
In contrast, the two actors portraying his police buddies are absolutely
incapable of delivering a satiric twist on their own, straight-faced lines. But
while the film is far from perfect, it still manages to deliver some tasty
dialogue (delivered by Pierce with all the suaveness of a seasoned vet) and
some very cost-effective production values (the film’s total budget being
estimated at around 1,000,000$). For those two reasons, it might yet be
considered like a mild success.
2½/5 David Hyde Pierce’s enthusiastic performance as the titular
character helps keep this flawed, but earnest indie effort afloat.
