Don't Talk to Strangers has everything in it you wouldn't expect to see. The story is basic enough; a mother divorces her controlling alcoholic husband and meets a new man, but when her son goes missing in a new town, both her new husband and ex-lover get together to hunt down the kidnappers. There's a strangely hilarious "veggieburger" scene. There's a fight where a lawyer named Huddleston gets attacked by the controlling ex-husband (I've never heard the name Huddleston before). There's a mom with some crazy driving skills. And there's a stereotypical fat county sheriff. Holy cow, why aren't movies today like this one? Well, another interesting thing is the appearances of two actors both in popular 1990's television shows: Dave "Squatch" Ward (Ned Bell from Disney's So Weird) plays the minor but distinctive role of a character named Tiny. A younger William B. Davis (the Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files) plays the role of the unfortunate lawyer named Huddleston in the movie's intro scene.There isn't much else to say, although Don't Talk to Strangers seems to stand out from other movies in the same genres (Lifetime-type movies). It had decent soundtrack, good acting (although the blonde child with the bowl-cut, he was awful) and it manages to hold your interest 'till the end, not bad for a movie of its type, although I don't see it winning an award any time soon.
... View MoreA conventional genre for filmmakers may be titled Theatre of Paranoia, within which are copious examples, this piece being one, wherein a protagonist is stalked or harried or wrongly envisioned or trapped or prejudiced against, i.e., in some way made to suffer by, generally, one person distracted by jealousy or some other mania. The victim here is Jane Bonner, splendidly played by Shanna Reed, who is tormented by her former husband Robert (Terry O'Quinn), a police detective with an extraordinary amount of free time who is maddened due to the disbanding of a joint custody agreement for the ex-couple's eight-year-old son, during divorce proceedings, Bonner's harassment becoming so acute that Jane and her new spouse Patrick (Pierce Brosnan) decide to leave their Saint Louis home and drive to California to start life anew, only to have Bonner trail them. Director Robert Lewis paces the film solidly during its initial scenes only to have his efforts hamstrung by excessive cutting along with a disjointed screenplay that is heavily reliant upon fancy, in addition to below standard post-production work (e.g., a car following Jane and Patrick is seen being driven from both sides of the front seat by its sole occupant), and a garish lack of knowledge concerning law enforcement procedures is only too evident.Throughout this foolish affair that the film becomes, Reed shines, easily gathering in acting honours with a subtly layered and credible performance, and O'Quinn also acts well, especially in light of his written dialogue. Richard Leiterman's cinematography is expert as always and fitting underscoring is contributed by Joseph Conlan, but the scenario's collapse into nearly total incongruity and odd character metamorphosis becomes too great of a handicap.
... View MoreIt's interesting to see what shape Pierce Brosnan's career was in before Bond arrived on the scene. In this "tense" thriller, Pierce Brosnan plays the gentle Patrick, who works leading ghetto kids on "confidence courses". He romances a woman, who has a bog-standard mop-top mid-90s kid called Eric. The woman's drunken ex-husband soon arrives on the scene and begins to mess with Pierce.At one stage Pierce is innocently making "vegeburgers". The husband enters. Pierce resumes making vegeburgers. The husband then assaults Pierce. Little chunks of half-eaten vegeburger call fall from Pierce's mouth. The fight abruptly ends without showing the outcome. This is as good as the film gets.
... View MoreI enjoyed watching this film because it had a good twist to it, just when you tought you had every thing worked out something new came along.I like Keegan Mactinosh, as I have seen quite a few films and shows with him in.Most of the other actors are well known and provide good roles in the film too.
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