The Perfect Host

I hate movies/shows/stories that are predictable. If you do too, then The Perfect Host is the movie for you.

The movie begins with John (Clayne Crawford) who is having a bad day. The cops are on his tail and he needs a place to lay low. Fortunately John is also a master con artist and talks his way into the opulent home of Warwick (David Hyde Pierce) with a sob story about being mugged and claims that they have a mutual friend.

I have to confess I have thought that Pierce was brilliant ever since I first saw him in the short-lived sitcom The Powers That Be, so this review might be biased. His role as Niles Crane on Frasier is almost a reprisal of that role. And you might think he is playing the effete and mild-mannered Niles again as Warwick.

But you won’t think that for long. John’s day is about to get so much worse.

There isn’t too much I can say about this movie without giving away the twists and turns of the plot. Go watch The Perfect Host and then come back and reflect on these questions:

What happened to Warwick’s dinner guests?

Do police lieutenants really make enough to live in that style?

Did you take a close look at the photos in Warwick’s album?

What will happen to Morton?

Now watch it again. Pierce's performance holds up on second viewing. The movie is still enjoyable, even though you know what happens, because now you are in on it from the beginning. You become a co-conspirator.

So...what did happen to Warwick’s dinner guests? 

On IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334553 

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