Director:Â David M. Rosenthal
Cast: Michael Ealy,  Sanaa Lathan,  Morris Chestnut,  Shannon Lucio,  Kathryn Morris,  Rutina Wesley
Rating:
Running time: 99 mins
Release date: 2oth November, 2015
Director Walter Hill once said that people don’t like watching the same film, but the same kinds. Earlier this year, Joel Edgerton‘s THE GIFT subverted the expectations of the thriller in surprising ways whilst using a traditional set-up structure. I do like it when thrillers take that kind of set-up and take it in a different direction, whilst still managing to satisfy the audience’s needs.
I can safely say now that if you are a fan of the classic PLAY MISTY FOR ME, FATAL ATTRACTION and SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY, you can more or less get the gist of THE PERFECT GUY, a competent, if familiar psychological thriller which provides just enough moments to keep you focused.
Leah (Saana Lathan) is 36, career-driven, but keen to be a mom and a wife to loyal boyfriend Dave (Morris Chestnut), who tells her after two years of their relationship that he’s not quite ready for the next phase, but doesn’t want to lose her either. Whilst licking her wounds and shunning the advances of a sleazy businessman in a bar, she meets Carter (Michael Ealy) who charms her sufficiently to get dating and back on the field again, to the extent that she takes him to meet her parents on the Fourth of July weekend. Carter comes with baseball tickets prepared for her father, (Charles S. Dutton, underused in the film), having had this info disclosed to him by Leah. However, on the way back home from her parents, Carter’s true colours are revealed in an altercation at a gas station…
THE PERFECT GUY, as I said, is familiar in terms of what it offers and the eventuality of the story is played out in your mind long before the credits roll, but it is nice to see a smart woman taking action earlier in the story and it does have something to say about the moral implications of your actions, as well as the difficulty the police and law have in nailing a perpetrator like the one Leah is faced with in this film. PACIFIC HEIGHTS and DISCLOSURE are two other films that play out a similar denouement in different circumstances.
It’s not flawless – indeed, there are glaringly obvious and convenient moments to move the thrills along and sometimes a little too calculated, but all in all, fans of this type of thriller will lap it up. Cinematography and sound are workmanlike and atmospheric enough.
Verdict
