Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK)
Rating: 3.2/5 stars
Leah (Sanaa Lathan) has it all: looks, brains, a beautiful modernist home in Los Angeles, a position of importance at a political- consulting firm, and the affections of her handsome boyfriend Dave (Morris Chestnut). But while her life seems perfect on the outside, her relationship has some sadly predictable shortcomings: She wants marriage and kids, and he doesn't. After one too many arguments on this topic, she tearfully breaks up with him; she then embarks on a long period of workaholic mourning, which only ends when a drunken boor corners her at a bar and asks to have a drink with her. No, he's not her new paramour — that would be the astute and handsome Carter (Michael Ealy), who comes to her rescue by posing as her boyfriend and telling the creep to take a hike. Grateful, she accepts Carter's offer of dinner.
Leah is smitten by Carter's manners and snake-charmer blue eyes, and before long she's taking him to meet her parents (L. Scott Caldwell and the always welcome Charles S. Dutton). But he seems too good to be true - and just when it seems like everything she's ever dreamed of is coming true, Carter beats a man into a bloody pulp for the crime of merely talking to her. Shaken, she breaks it off with him, only to find that he won't take no for an answer. He soon begins a campaign of harassment, spying, and general creepiness that has Leah fearing for her life. As a result, she seeks an ally in a police detective named Hansen (the also always welcome Holt McCallany).
The aforementioned events give Ealy the toughest task, switching from blue-eyed charmer to IT-savvy psychopath, and he makes a decent fist of it in a movie which offers little genuine depth, but moves through its paces watchably enough, borrowing judiciously from the Hitchcock playbook along the way. Lathan makes a likable heroine, even if we ponder the wisdom of her continuing to live alone in a swish glass-walled house and, without making too much of an issue of it, the film hints that the white-dominated corporate environment in which she moves subtly adds to her feelings of isolation and vulnerability.
"The Perfect Guy" isn't exploring new territory in the "psycho- stalker" subgenre (although it's notably more sensual than most films in this category). While the cast is capable and there are several moments of nail-biting tension, the plot leans too heavily on obvious clichés like the crazy collage of photos in the villain's lair signifying his unhinged mental state, victims standing dumbfounded as the bad guy advances when they should be scrambling for their phone, and the laziest trope of all in American cinema: A gun will solve this.
But the end result is elevated by the stylish direction of David M. Rosenthal, who gives this Lifetime-esque movie a higher gloss than it usually receives. The film wouldn't work if audiences didn't believe that Leah's passion for Carter was the real deal, and Rosenthal makes their animal attraction tangible in a scene in which they dance at an underground reggae venue, grinding against each other until they — and the audience — are at a fever pitch, culminating in a wide romp in the basement's dingy, dank washroom. Moody shots of the golden haze hovering over Los Angeles in the morning might not be strictly necessary in a plot-driven feature like this, but when Rosenthal juxtaposes them with hungry coyotes roaming the canyon streets, he reminds us that there are all kinds of unscrupulous animals on the loose in L.A.
"The Perfect Guy" might be high melodrama, and its conclusion isn't as pleasingly airtight as the ending in a thriller needs to be. Yet despite its faults and superficiality, it's an effective and somewhat engrossing time-killer.
Rating: 3.2/5 stars
Leah (Sanaa Lathan) has it all: looks, brains, a beautiful modernist home in Los Angeles, a position of importance at a political- consulting firm, and the affections of her handsome boyfriend Dave (Morris Chestnut). But while her life seems perfect on the outside, her relationship has some sadly predictable shortcomings: She wants marriage and kids, and he doesn't. After one too many arguments on this topic, she tearfully breaks up with him; she then embarks on a long period of workaholic mourning, which only ends when a drunken boor corners her at a bar and asks to have a drink with her. No, he's not her new paramour — that would be the astute and handsome Carter (Michael Ealy), who comes to her rescue by posing as her boyfriend and telling the creep to take a hike. Grateful, she accepts Carter's offer of dinner.
Leah is smitten by Carter's manners and snake-charmer blue eyes, and before long she's taking him to meet her parents (L. Scott Caldwell and the always welcome Charles S. Dutton). But he seems too good to be true - and just when it seems like everything she's ever dreamed of is coming true, Carter beats a man into a bloody pulp for the crime of merely talking to her. Shaken, she breaks it off with him, only to find that he won't take no for an answer. He soon begins a campaign of harassment, spying, and general creepiness that has Leah fearing for her life. As a result, she seeks an ally in a police detective named Hansen (the also always welcome Holt McCallany).
The aforementioned events give Ealy the toughest task, switching from blue-eyed charmer to IT-savvy psychopath, and he makes a decent fist of it in a movie which offers little genuine depth, but moves through its paces watchably enough, borrowing judiciously from the Hitchcock playbook along the way. Lathan makes a likable heroine, even if we ponder the wisdom of her continuing to live alone in a swish glass-walled house and, without making too much of an issue of it, the film hints that the white-dominated corporate environment in which she moves subtly adds to her feelings of isolation and vulnerability.
"The Perfect Guy" isn't exploring new territory in the "psycho- stalker" subgenre (although it's notably more sensual than most films in this category). While the cast is capable and there are several moments of nail-biting tension, the plot leans too heavily on obvious clichés like the crazy collage of photos in the villain's lair signifying his unhinged mental state, victims standing dumbfounded as the bad guy advances when they should be scrambling for their phone, and the laziest trope of all in American cinema: A gun will solve this.
But the end result is elevated by the stylish direction of David M. Rosenthal, who gives this Lifetime-esque movie a higher gloss than it usually receives. The film wouldn't work if audiences didn't believe that Leah's passion for Carter was the real deal, and Rosenthal makes their animal attraction tangible in a scene in which they dance at an underground reggae venue, grinding against each other until they — and the audience — are at a fever pitch, culminating in a wide romp in the basement's dingy, dank washroom. Moody shots of the golden haze hovering over Los Angeles in the morning might not be strictly necessary in a plot-driven feature like this, but when Rosenthal juxtaposes them with hungry coyotes roaming the canyon streets, he reminds us that there are all kinds of unscrupulous animals on the loose in L.A.
"The Perfect Guy" might be high melodrama, and its conclusion isn't as pleasingly airtight as the ending in a thriller needs to be. Yet despite its faults and superficiality, it's an effective and somewhat engrossing time-killer.