Don't Talk to Strangers

During an acrimonious divorce and custody battle, Jane Bonner meets and marries Patrick Brody (Pierce Brosnan). When Eric, Jane's son, goes missing, suspicion immediately falls on her alcoholic cop ex-husband who has been stalking the couple. But Jane uncovers a secret that every mother dreads.

Pierce Brosnan puts in an excellent performance, transitioning from charming to ruthless with ease as the plot unravels. It's a neat thriller which fools you into thinking it's a typical "husband stalks son and wife" but it smoothly twists into something else. There are some dull bits but that's kept to the minimum and it's quite tense at times with some clever misdirection.

Scenes that cut from dramatic-seeming build-ups to something that may or may not show the conclusion. A speech or two from the strong, nearly independent main, and of course female, character, to one of the weaker, and in general lesser, men. Crying, if however brief, in the shower. This really has all that makes a Lifetime flick, though I don't know if it actually is one. I don't have a problem with women being empowered, or a lot of airtime being dedicated to it, I just think that the films can be less clichéd than I understand they are. With that said, the twists in this are pretty unexpected and interesting, if not necessarily all credible. Also, that's about where the above-average qualities end. The writing sacrifices realism and consistency for victimization and aforementioned surprise occurrences whenever they saw fit to do so. The "action" tends to be so half-heartedly put on the screen that you can't tell what's going on. The cinematography ranges between passable and just plain uninspired. The acting varies, O'Quinn outshines the rest, and not all of his fellow performers are awful. The kid actively appeared daft, both real life and his character. The language is fairly limited, a couple of moderate strength words here and there, and nothing else particularly objectionable, apart from perhaps the thematic material and a little violence. The entire thing is "fine". Could do worse, won't be difficult to do better. I recommend it to big fans of those involved, and those absolutely famished for a crime-thriller they haven't yet watched. 6/10

This was decent film, not worth getting totally excited about, but still very much recommend. The problem is that if you haven't seen this film by now, you probably won't unless someone puts it out on DVD. It's been over 10 years since I saw this, and the photography was good enough to make want to see this again, this time on a widescreen DVD format.

For a film that isn't well-known and stars an unknown actress (along with the known Pierce Brosnan), this was a well-acted, nicely-filmed movie. It movies well and has some nice twists to it, guaranteed to keep the first-time viewer interested. It will keep you guessing.

Terry O'Quinn played the best role in here, in my opinion. Reed did a nice job of acting but I didn't care for her persona. Kudos to Richard Leiterman for his photography.

What I didn't understand was the movie's "R" rating. There was very little profanity in here, very little blood and no nudity. What gives? It did read "R" on my VHS tape.

It'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.

The first thing I'll say about the film is this. Pierce. Yes, the mighty mighty Pierce. Don't be fooled though, just because of Pierce factor it doesn't mean that this movie is good, far from it infact. From Pierce demonstrating his culinary skills at making vegeburgers, to Pierce being violently assulted while sitting on a stool eating said vegeburgers this movie is poor, and believe me, it could have been better but for the directing. Pierces acting is nothing short of grade A, but the entire film seems pushed along quickly, and that, combined with the bogstandard plot makes it seem like the director wanted the maximum amount of Pierce in the movie, hoping that that alone would hold up the movie, sadly it didn't

Verdict - Bogstandard plot(0) + rushed scenes(0) + Peirce(4) > 4/10