MamaGravity
good back-story, and good acting
Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Janis
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
sol
(There are Spoilers) Things aren't what you think that they are in "Don't Talk to Strangers" with a build up that keeps you guessing just who's trying to kidnap little Eric Bonner, Keegan Macintose, from his divorced mother Jane, Shanna Reed.It's when Jane got total custody of Eric that her ex-husband Robert Bonner, Terry O'Quinn, started stalking her day and night making Jane's life miserable. It's not that long after her divorce that Jane, and aerobic instructor, got romantically involved with one of her students the handsome and dashing health food addict Patrick Brody, Pierce Brosnan. In what seemed like a matter of day Partick not only made himself a permanent guest at Jane's home but got very friendly with Eric, who at first didn't like him, and had Jane fall in love and marry him!Robert a police detective realizing that his ex-wife Jane left him for another man started to check up on Patrick and started smelling a rat in his not so perfect past. Patrick spent time in prison for forgery and has been planning to marry Jane not because of love but because of Eric whom he has a great fondness for. A fondness that he had for Eric well before he found out where he lived and who his parents, Jane & Robert, were!The movie has both Jane & Patrick traveling to California and being stalked by Robert the entire way. It's not until almost half the film is over that we, and Jane, finally realize why Robert is so determined to keep Eric from being Patrick's step-son as well as keeping the real circumstances of Eric's birth from his wife Jane. It's the real reason that Robert started to drink heavily just after Eric was born which was one of the main reasons that he lost custody of him! Well acted movie that has a number of surprises in it that don't get out of hand and look ridicules in trying to shock its audience! The biggest surprise of all is the that it's able to stay on focus and still be believable even with the sudden turn of events in the films final five or so minutes.
TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews
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
rsoonsa
A 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.
inhisblazer
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.