[.ca] Never Talk to Strangers (Widescreen/Full Screen)

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.

A movie to endure, not enjoy:
I cannot remember another time when i actually suffered through a movie, but this one was almost unbearable to watch for me and company. The dialogue is cliched and horrendously bad, the acting is poor and forced, and the story utterly, irredeemably awful. It is full of lame suspense-thriller gags that have been used perhaps 100 times prior to this one. The movie also has one of the worst conclusions of any movie in the past 30 years at least-- all of us were shaking our heads and laughing, a bad thing since this is not intended to be a comedic film! De Mornay and Banderas have done vastly better work than this, and if you catch this film it will spoil your opinion of both of them.

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.

Okay, so the ending stinks....:
BUT, I still liked this film. While it has holes, characer-wise, such as; why wouldn't Sarah know her ex-fiancee's sister or his cousin already? Somehow, it's still easy enough to get caught up in the mysterious Tony and his motives in pursuing Sarah, and hey, anyone who DOESN'T melt when Tony is holding the wine glasses, pouring the wine for Sarah as she enters his apartment has no romantic soul! The ending is unsatisfactory and rings false, but do what I do, make your own ending and hit rewind!

A Sexy Thriller to Add to Your Collection:
Rebecca DeMornay plays a beautiful but serious(note the reading glasses) psychologist who has a mysterious background concerning the loss of her mother as a small child. Dennis Miller is the suspicious ex-boyfriend and neighbor. Antonio Banderas is the sexy guy she runs into while shopping and begins dating. Lots of disturbing things begin to happen to her and she suspscts someone is going to try to kill her. The ending was a surprise twist to me. There are some steamy scenes between her and Antonio which are worth the purchase of the DVD in my opinion. You can watch it in English, Spanish or Portuguese and it also has subtitles in Chinese, Korean and Thai. The DVD features full or widescreen format, trailers and chapter selection.