The Perfect Host
The Perfect Host Image
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Metascore
48 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 16 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 11 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
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  • Starring: Clayne Crawford, David Hyde Pierce, Nathaniel Parker
  • Summary: Warwick Wilson is the consummate host. He carefully prepares for a dinner party, the table impeccably set and the duck perfectly timed for 8:30 p.m. John Taylor is a career criminal. He’s just robbed a bank and needs to get off the streets. He finds himself on Warwick’s doorstep posing as a s a friend of a friend, new to Los Angeles, who’s been mugged and lost his luggage. As the wine flows and the evening progresses, we become deeply intertwined in the lives of these two men and discover just how deceiving appearances can be. With outstanding performances by David Hyde Pierce and Clayne Crawford, cowriter/director Nick Tomnay takes us on a suspense-filled ride where nothing is as it seems. The Perfect Host is a slippery psychological thriller that exposes true human nature and reveals just how far we’re willing to go to satisfy our needs. (Magnolia Pictures)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 16
  3. Negative: 3 out of 16
  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Justin Lowe
    Jun 26, 2011
    70
    Tomnay skillfully shifts the film's initial tone from suspense to dark comedy so that the transition never feels forced.
  2. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    Jul 1, 2011
    60
    Some of the shocks are way too broad, and the enclosed perspective suggests the material would better suit a play. But Crawford radiates charisma, and Pierce sells even the nuttiest moments.
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    Jun 29, 2011
    58
    For a while, the movie has a cat-and-mouse appeal - it's like "Hard Candy" crossed with a smaller-scale "Deathtrap." Pierce acts with an enjoyably testy flamboyance, but by the time he starts to imagine that his guests have arrived even though dinner's been canceled, the film has given him one loose screw too many.
  4. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Jesse Cataldo
    Jun 27, 2011
    38
    Although it fancies itself as rigidly complex as a well-played chess match, Nick Tomnay's The Perfect Host is really a game without any rules, one where characters and situations exist in total thrall of the next shocking twist.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. CBZ
    8
    This is a very interesting movie, that doesn't follow all the clichés and keeps the audience interested until the end. I really enjoyed it since it has no boring parts, you never know whats coming in the next scene.… Expand
  2. JonathanC
    7
    Let's face it, most movies today, the vast majority, use standard story telling techniques and cliche's to tell their similar stories, but it was refreshing to see a "ride" come back to a modern movie. Yes I thought about the two or three twists that may come and was right in two of them, but it was unravelled in a playful way, which was very refreshing and original for a thriller. I really enjoyed David Hyde-Pierce in this film, and hope we see a lot more of him in the future. The movie opens in a great way, setting the tone of a heist, action and drops it nicely into a "stage play" format. I loved it.… Expand
  3. TheMudDoctor
    6
    Nick Tomnayâ

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