Movies-TV

Terrific De Mornay

A more or less typical thriller made special by Rebecca De Mornay's awesome performance. She is the executive producer of this picture and must have badly wanted to do this role -- I'm glad she did.She plays a psychiatrist evaluating whether an accused serial killer is competent to stand trial. It becomes obvious early on that she was drawn to psychiatry because of her own severe emotional problems and difficult past. In the meantime, we are shown troubling relationships with men appearing in her personal life. An upstairs neighbor badly wants her, but she wants only to be friends. Her father shows up out of the blue seeking affection and assistance, but she resists him, and it is obvious that their relationship and her childhood were deeply troubled. A stranger (Banderas) she meets in a store ardently pursues her, and they begin an affair, but she has difficulty trusting him, both because he is something of a suspicious character and because, as she tells him, she has difficulty trusting anybody. Their relationship becomes volatile and angry, tinged with violent overtones. Then there is the issue of her ex-fiancé, who vanished abruptly and without explanation just before the scheduled wedding.As happens in these kinds of films, she is sent a series of mysterious messages and packages with no return addresses. Then violent things start to occur. Someone is clearly trying to terrorize her, but who? So many suspects -- Banderas? The upstairs neighbor (who is of course jealous of Banderas)? The serial killer, acting through friends outside of prison? Her father? The ex-fiancée? I did not anticipate the answer to this question, revealed of course at the film's end, but it was not an especially unusual conclusion for films of this kind. What made this picture worthwhile was De Mornay's utterly believable portrayal of, let us say, a difficult character, reminiscent of what she did in "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle". She is simply great at this kind of thing, besides being classically gorgeous.The other acting is fine, but no one stands out. Banderas is always good, but in this one he is mostly eye candy for the ladies. Harry Dean Stanton as the serial killer is suitably menacing and crazed, but this picture is really all De Mornay. I found it a bit slow at times, but the last 20 minutes or so made up for the weak spots. Definitely worth watching.

Mornay sauce.

Rebecca De Mornay can be a fascinating beautiful actress but as for the parts she's given to play,if you cannot say something nice...De Mornay portrays a woman who had terrible traumas as a child with a father she can hardly stand now that she's a grown up and has become a -of course brilliant- shrink.She has an affair with Banderas ,whom we suspect of being (ouch!how original!) a serial killer.Sometimes she recalls Banderas's mother-in-law Tippi Hedren's character in "Marnie" .But I wouldn't count on it:Hitchcock died twenty-four years ago ,and a lot of regents desperately try to replace him .Here the director pulls out all the stops to make a thriller with an unexpected end,but that ending is so far-fetched it is absolutely impossible to buy it.The movie includes the obligatory "conversations with a serial killer" in the "silence of the lamb" tradition,murders (human beings and cats),split personality,and open ending in case the crowds should call for more.Apparently they did not,and they were right.

Banderas and DeMornay are nice to see, in this mediocre movie.

Seems the filmmakers wanted a "Hitchcock" type of mystery, they even use background music that sounds amazingly like that in Hitchcock's finest thrillers. But this is not a particularly good movie, not so much for the story, but the dialog is often unrealistic. Plus the love scene at about 35 minutes is more silly than erotic. Still, this is a mystery and will offer a surprise for many during the last 15 minutes. I've always enjoyed Rebecca DeMornay. She has fascinating looks, and is also a capable actress. I enjoyed seeing her in this movie. The median IMDb vote of "5" is about right.SPOILERS -- READ NO FURTHER if you have not seen this movie. Rebecca plays a psychiatrist, and we see several scenes where she is evaluating an accused murdered for competency, he claims to have multiple personalities, but we suspect he is just trying to get off easy. Meanwhile she meets a handsome stranger, Banderas, who is actually investigating her to find out why her former boyfriend disappeared suddenly. Plus, Dennis Miller plays her slightly askew "friend" who is always trying to get her to sleep with him. She gets a gift of dead flowers, she reads her own obit in the newspaper, she gets a box with her dead cat in it. In the climax, turns out SHE has the multiple personality, triggered by childhood experiences of molestation by her father, she was stalking her own self, presumably she got rid of her old boyfriend, and in her apartment shot and killed both Banderas and her dad, then giving a statement that she shot Banderas only after he had killed her dad.

A waste of perfectly good celluloid

After watching this movie you will want to slap the actors silly and ask them-- what were they thinking when they hopped onto this sinking ship?

Never Talk to Strangers focuses on a court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Sarah Taylor (de Mornay) who-- in deference to that painfully overused cinema-shrink stereotype-- is thoroughly more whacked-out than any of her patients (if she actually *had* patients!). Taylor is evaluating an indicted serial rapist, Max Cheski (Harry Dean Stanton), with multiple personality disorder. Meanwhile she runs into a former cop, Tony (Antonio Banderas) with a pony tail, a wall of tattoos on his arm, and a blatant rip-off of the loft apartment in Fatal Attraction, who takes Sarah to his House o' Lovin' for some overwrought and mildly entertaining sex scenes. Sarah at the same time is confronting her creep father (Len Cariou) and her friendly neighbor (Dennis Miller) who has a thing for her and-- drumroll-- suddenly someone seems to be stalking her. Wilted flowers are sent to her; her house is broken into; an electric heater nearly kills her in the bathtub; and, not to be outdone by Fatal Attraction's dead bunny scene, some poor cat winds up as a pawn in a death threat in a disgustingly exploitative scene. Sarah hires a PI to check up on Tony but he only seems to become more enigmatic as the film stumbles along. So how does the mystery unravel? Who's doing the stalking? I won't tell because, well, you'll figure it out anyway after the past 20 minutes.

This has to rank as one of the top 10 or 20 most awful scripts of the entire decade. It's got such zingers as (Tony speaking) "If you never talk to strangers, you'll never meet anyone new" and (Cheski) "The Buddhists have a saying. If you ever meet your master in the road, kill him." Yep. That's characteristic. The implausibility level is forehead-slapping. When Sarah finds her apt broken into she does not call for help; no, she goes in and *takes a bath*. And the ending-- oh, my, it makes that resolution in Sliver seem like a cinematic masterpiece! The conclusion to this movie alone is so ridiculously idiotic, nonsensical, boring, poorly acted, incoherent, and abysmally accomplished that you will want to attack your TV set for having wasted your valuable time and money so appallingly.

I don't know about Peter Hall's films in general but he *cannot* direct a suspense film, at least certainly not this one. Everything seems jagged and forced. The musical score is awful, totally overdone. The cinematography is O.K.-- there are some nice outdoor scenes here. And the acting? Well, I genuinely like all 3 main actors here (de Mornay, Banderas, Miller) but this film makes you yearn to see *anything else* they've been in. De Mornay was wonderful back in Risky Business, but nothing works for her here; she cannot infuse any nuance into her part as the psychiatrist, and the juxtaposing of her scared-victim scenes with the loft-lovin' scenes fails. Miller is generally peripheral, which if anything is a good thing in this film; what scenes he is in, are laughable. And Banderas? He tries hard, honestly, but it's obvious that there is a mismatch between his talent (which is considerable) and the woefulness of the script. And that's the heart of the problem-- the script and the direction sink the actors before they had a chance to even remotely shine. So if you're looking for a suspense movie to check out, do yourself a favor-- rent Hitchcock, DePalma, Ron Howard, anybody-- but stay away from this.

Not that bad, surely

Yes, the plot devices were, at times, obvious. Yes, there were clear hints to the outcome in the early stages of the film. Yes, some of the acting wasn't great.But, I didn't think it was that bad, and (forgive my ignorance in psychiatric matters if this is wrong) that implausible either.I think, in acting terms, it was a general disappointment in the two main star actors who have done much better work than this. But don't be too harsh.

jim lantz jr.

I thought it was a very good movie. To the viewers from Denver and the other place, I bet neither one of you have ever been naked with areal woman before or even know how to treat a real woman. I thougt Rebecca DeMornay was outstanding especially at the end when she relapsed back to her childhood and then came back to the present. I think Rebecca DeMornay has more guts to try different roles than any other actress in Hollywood. You have to look beyond her good looks and appreciate her range and ability. The other "quote hot actresses" are just damsels in distress packaged in different outfits. Rebecca's range and guts are unmatched in my opinion. I'd take Tonya over Julia Roberts any day. Rebecca's the best in my book. Jim.

An Interesting Hitchcockian styled thriller a must for Thriller completist's & fans of DeMornay

This Thriller was received poorly on it's release, this is unfortunate as I found much to like here.Firstly I liked the main musical score running throughout the film and the Director was quite clearly going for a Hitchcockian feel, which only partially succeeds though. The chemistry between the leads is excellent and the scenes containing both DeMornay and Banderas are the strongest and most watchable. I have to say I did not think Harry Dean Stanton put too much effort into his part as he was not all that convincing and Dennis Miller was just plain irritating. Len Cariou was okay as DeMornay's father, but really the two leads are the main focus and the main reason to watch this. The love scenes although a bit lengthy were stylishly made and did not detract from the film, the ending although a bit of a stretch was at least surprising and acted fairly convincingly (although I am no shrink).So although being far from a classic I certainly thought it was far from being the worst thriller. I would rate it above the Meg Ryan effort "In The Cut" & Ashley Judd's "Twisted" along with Sandra Bullock's "Murder by Numbers" to name a few. My rating 6.6 out of 10

Great!

If you are tired of those predictable "thrillers" where the bad guy is overly obvious and the plot is over done than see this movie. I don't want to ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it so I'll just say this, you may think you know what's going on but you're in for a big surprise. What would that surprise be? You'll just have to wait 'til the end to see. One of the best movies I've seen in a while.

Before there was Hush . . .

I thought Sliver offered the most boring and trivial "trick" ending in movie history, but of course I was wrong. I had no disillusions that this movie was going to be good. Unfortunately, it was worse than I expected. The worst part is that the obvious ending is so ridiculous and horrible that you can't believe it until it actually happens.

DOUBLE TALK

NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS is what is commonly referred to as an "erotic thriller", although it's eroticism is skimpy and the thrills don't come too often. Rebecca DeMornay (Risky Business, Trip to Bountiful) plays a repressed psychiatrist who is evaluating alleged serial killer Harry Dean Stanton to see if he should stand trial for his accused crimes. Stanton claims he is a multiple personality disorder victim and therefore can plead innocent due to insanity. DeMornay has a chance encounter with sexy Antonio Banderas and starts into a relationship with him. This alienates her best friend Dennis Miller who has been carrying a torch for DeMornay for some time. DeMornay starts receiving strange things in her mail: dead flowers, her dead cat, etc., etc., and soon it seems DeMornay may be the victim herself of a dangerous stalker. Is it Banderas? Miller? or perhaps even her estranged father (Len Cariou). Once all the secrets are peeled away, things aren't quite what they seem. While definitely not in the league of truly suspenseful films, NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS offers a sharp performance from DeMornay and Cariou particularly, and Banderas is effectively smoldering. Astute viewers, however, will see the end coming a mile away.

PASSABLE ENTERTAINMENT

but nothing more. DeMornay looks great for the guys and Banderas looks great for the ladies and they fit together nicely in this supposed thriller about a police psychologist who may or may not be the victim of a stalker and who may or may not have been abused as a child. The plot has some twists that are pretty easy to pick up and there are no surprises but it is still more watchable than the usual fare on LIFETIME TV.

Preposterous and by-the-numbers.

This derivative erotic thriller remains watchable most of the way, mainly because a viewer is casually curious about how it will turn out, and because the director, Peter Hall, manages to stage a pretty hot (and quite bold) sex scene. But the finale, though unexpected, is preposterous, and the whole plotting (complete with childhood traumas and multiple-personality disorders) reveals itself to be unbearably cliched, especially as far as motivation is concerned. (*1/2)

not bad at all

I liked the way the story played out-to me most of the actors were convincing in their portrayals of their characters.It didn't bog us down with lengthly background details.I found irony in MS.DeMornay's character's occupation and her character's real life experiences.I see no need to trash her acting ability as some do she's a fine solid actress-not bad looking either.I found it entertaining with a certain scene sequence unmatched in my opinion-see for yourself.You have to pay attention and not just look at pictures-but to each their own.

Never Talk to Strangers

The only thing this movie could've used was Banana Face instead of Dennis Miller. He sucks. Who can understand those big words anyway? And he didn't even get his ass bitten in this movie like Antonio did. Antonio got some AB action in this movie if you know what I mean. Know who would have been better than Dennis Miller? Dennis Leary. He's that guy who wrote that song. And furthermore, I mean, who cares about Dennis Miller anyway? So he got beat in the face with a Pipe. No one is like, "Oh No! look Dennis Miller got in the face with a pipe." Everyone was like, "Hey, Dennis miller got hit the face with a Pipe. That will stop his mouth from moving." When I was getting My ass bit i was getting humped to death by a wickedly smoking blonde Bambino. Alberquerkie can get her ass bitten from new Mexico by a a raging stinking asshole, because they work for like 2 dollars a day. They got real fine skin. You go to Home Debot in El Jabaho and get one. Just ask em, "Antonio, what's your name?" and there you go. After we use him for this movie we can give him a unicycle and teach him to prance around as a fancy man, like one of those Zorro gags. We could even write a movie for this guy, called: "The Mexican."

Shadow Play

***SPOILERS*** We first get to see pretty blond psychologist Dr. Sarah Taylor, Rebecca De Mornay, interviewing her favorite mental patient convicted serial murder and sex fiend Max Cheski, Harry Dean Stanton. Max seems to be far more knowledgeable in the science of multiple personalities then even Sarah is even though she's supposed to be the expert in these matters. It's much later in the film that we begin to realize how right Max was in that he's suffers from a multiple personality complex himself!Sarah later gets involved with ex-cop Tony Ramirez, Antonio Banderas,whom she met in the wine department of her local supermarket. Tony a guy who can't take no for an answer sweep the icy blond off her feet and within hours the two have a sizzling as well as kinky affair at Tony's loft apartment. The affair between Sarah and Tony gets under the skin of Sarah's boyfriend Cliff Raddison, Dennis Miller, who in how he handles himself may be in need of psychiatric treatment, like Sarah's patients, himself.The movie gets even more confusing when Sarah's father Henry Taylor, Len Cariou, unexpectedly shows up wanting to crash her place, because he doesn't have money for a hotel room, for the Christmas Holiday's. Henry has been estranged from his daughter since her mother died in a car smash-up when she was a little girl. It soon becomes evident that the circumstances of Sarah's mothers death are not exactly as her father told her in fact she was at the scene and made, through brainwashing, to forget the whole thing! As we soon learn it was Sarah's mothers death that was the reason that got her interested in becoming a psychologist in the first place!It's when Sarah starts to get strange packages sent to her, one with the dismembered body of her pet cat Sam, that she starts to suspect that Tony, whom she's now having a stormy relationship with,is behind them. Sarah also finds out by breaking into, at his loft, Tony's personal belongings that he's been keeping a secret file on her, with newspaper clippings and police reports, that go back to he time when her mothers died some 20 years ago! Hiring private investigator Dudkoff, Eugene Lipinski, to shadow Tony's movement he reports to her that Tony may not only be an alcoholic in that he spent $700.00 on booze at the liquor store, in one day, but is also married with a five year old daughter!It's when ex-boyfriend Cliff gets the hell beat out of him by a masked assailant that Sarah finally suspects, if she didn't already, that Tony is responsible for all the terror that she now finds herself engulfed in. ****SPOILER ALERT**** What Sarah didn't realize is that her troubles are a lot closer to home then she could ever have imagined!Nothing special in this Alfred Hitchcock-like thriller with the exception of the typical icy blond, Sarah Taylor, really heating up the screen in her almost X-rated acrobatics with Tony Rameiriz. Something that even the "Master", Alfred Hitchcock, would more then hesitate in putting into his films!

Never liked this!

Forgive me, but this work of director Peter Hall is horrendous. If you can't get to us with the plot, why not kill someone's cat or dog. That surely reaches the audiences. This viewer is tired of seeing animals sacrificed for the plot of a movie. And, believe me, I saw it coming before she opened the package. How predictable can you get. Take a cute animal then kill it in a gruesome way. I have never been a fan of De Mornay and this performance tells me why. Overacted and somewhat stagnant in interpretation, I found her rather silly and definitely boring. I did like Banderas, but felt bad that he had to play opposite De Mornay. He has done much better in other films namely
"Philadelphia" where he had some honesty in his dialogue. In this chestnut he did his best to keep his character real. But the writers, Green & Rush, did a good job in preventing this with their trite storyline and insipid dialogue. Please, let us not be subjected to this kind of entertainment.
Some of us aren't fooled by corny plots, bludgeoning animals and generally long winded dialogue. Seeing her get away with it, made me furious.

Are you an Antonio fan?

If you like Antonio Banderas, this is a great movie for you! He is wonderfully sexual in this movie, and the one scene that stands out is right after Rebecca returns to his apartment and slaps him....it had me so...well, lets just say it was really good! If you can watch a movie for its entertainment value, and not pick it apart for its cinematic quality and reality quirks, then you will enjoy this movie. It does have a plot, and a good one, and the ending is a little bit of a let down, but other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Antonio is at one of his sexiest in this movie! He had me captivated the whole time! Watch for that particular scene, you wont be disappointed!

Works better as a drama than a thriller, after second viewing

I've been trying to think of a word to describe the main characters in this movie, and the best one is incongruity. A macho-looking Puerto Rican named Tony (Antonio Banderas) dressed in a leather jacket with big silver rings on most of his fingers turns out to be a wine expert and an ex-cop with a great sense of fun and takes his sex either kinky or romantic. An up-scale psychiatrist named Sarah (Rebecca DeMoray) is evaluating a murderer, Max Cheski (Harry Dean Stanton) for Multiple Personality Disorder while she goes through extreme moods shifts. She falls for Tony, who doesn't seem to be her type, yet ends up being the perfect guy to help her with her sexual repression and problems with trust.This movie doesn't quite work as a thriller. It's poorly written and directed. Too many thriller clichés like the over-use of camera shots, quick cuts, and blaring, screeching music at "shocking" moments. There are a number of stalker suspects - is it Tony? Neighbor Cliff? Dad Henry? Cheski? Yet I never believed any of them to be credible suspects. At no point was I ever on the edge of my seat worried about her being with any of these so-called suspects.The clues, at least, are nicely woven in. Although it makes a sartorial and editorial error when it gives us a clue about the real stalker - the film unwittingly rules out one of the suspects, yet keeps on trying to make us believe he's one of them. I had a sense of who it was by the end. Although I found things about it distasteful and not well presented. I was surprised a couple of things, so I didn't guess the entire ending beforehand.I found DeMoray's acting go from passable to over the top at times. The only one who actually makes this movie watchable is Banderas, who manages to do some good things with the poor material he's given. When the film wants to be an erotic thriller, he's the one, not surprisingly, who gives it the eroticism it wants, not DeMoray. Not that they lack chemistry, but she's not as up to the job as he is. When the film wants light, fun romantic moments, he's the one brings them to the film. When the film wants serious dramatic tension, Banderas serves it up. Sometimes, DeMoray either seems to lag behind him or goes over the top in an effort to match him.In spite of it's flaws as a thriller, once you know what's really going on and watch it again, it makes for a decent drama (as long as you ignore the annoying overdone "shocking moments.") Second time through lets you actually understand the whys about things. Unfortunately, most people aren't going to want to watch this thing a second time.

The She-Shrink That Ate Budapest.

Man, is this lousy. It doesn't deserve much in the way of comment so, keeping it brief, Rebecca DeMornay is a highly disciplined police psychiatrist who falls for Latin Lover Antonio Banderas in a wine store, he of the ponytail and jail-house tats. When she cuts loose, she really cuts loose. Other than this torrid affair she's having (and we must admit the affair has its speed bumps) she's a pretty cold fish. Her broke, ailing father shows up for the first time in years and she boots him out. She's also adept at keeping her horny upstairs neighbor (Dennis Miller) at bay. And there's prisoner Harry Dean Stanton who's trying to maneuver her into giving him a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder so he won't have his privates nailed to the wall for the serial murders he's committed.All these people, and perhaps more, are immediately suspect when strange things begin happening to her. Somebody sends her dead flowers. Somebody does unspeakable things to her pet cat. (The next time I see a household pet turn up in a parcel or strung up in the closet or boiled in a pot, I'm going to puke.) So who's doing it? Guess. No power on earth could force me to reveal the ending, but maybe a hint will help: childhood abuse.The abuse excuse is an interesting business in itself, far more interesting than the movie. What does "childhood abuse" mean? Do we mean sexual abuse? Physical? Both? How about whacking a kid over the back with a wooden cooking spoon, hard enough to break it? That's what happened to me and my brother when we were kids, just as similar things happened to all the other errant boys in the neighborhood. Sexual abuse? That never happened to any of us, as far as I know, although I'm not sure it would have been rejected with any degree of animation. In the Samoan village I studied for two years, there was one case of an adolescent boy found playing sexually with a much younger girl. The girl's family beat hell out of him. The boy's own family sent him to live with another branch of the family in another village, an exile that lasted two years. By the time he returned the incident was forgotten by everyone, including the child. (By the way, the little girl we see here is under five so it's unlikely that she'd remember Dad's night-time visits in any case since long-term memory isn't really established until about that time.) DeMornay's experience leading to her mental disorder can be called "the social construction of trauma." It's not there unless we put it there. Enough of the psychiatric lecture. That will be fifteen cents.You want trauma? I'll give you trauma. The film absolutely forces us to identify with Rebecca DeMornay's character, right from the beginning. Then, when she has her first tryst with Antonio Banderas, and Pio Donnagio's score is pounding the eroticism into our heads, the camera gives us a shot from over her shoulder of the bare-torsoed Antonio crawling over us with his hairy chest. Now THAT'S traumatic. It makes any male viewer feel as if he's on the floor of the laundry room at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo. Don't get me wrong. I don't dislike Antonio Banderas. It's just that I'm not in love with him. There aren't enough nude shots of Rebecca DeMornay's elfin body in the entire universe to compensate for that kind of anxiety.Here's an engaging way of surviving this movie. Instead of just sitting there puling, try picking out the scenes that were filmed in Toronto and separating them from the ones shot in Budapest. It's a challenge, really, and may, for all we know, preserve your sanity.

Bad film. (SPOILER)

Sorry I couldn't be more expressive in my summary, but those two words seemed to describe the movie perfectly. This is not only a bad film, but a bad film with bad acting and a plot that will be inconsequential to most watchers.See it only for a naked Rebecca De Mornay tied to a chain-link fence and moaning with 'ecstasy; supposedly 'erotic', but actually hilarious.