John Taylor (Clayne Crawford) is trying to make an escape. His foot is injured and bleeding, and he's desperate not to be recognised, so steals a bicycle, then a car, but realises he has to get something for his injury and stops at a convenience store to buy disinfectant. Just as he picks the bottle off the shelves, a hold up occurs, as a young woman disguised unconvincingly as a boy storms in brandishing a gun, ordering the shopkeeper to hand over the money in the register, and for John to give her his wallet. But he has a gun too, and disarms her - then is distracted by the news report about him on the counter television...
The Perfect Host had one of those twisty-turny plots where it was probably best if you did not know too much about it before you sat down to watch. Robbery was part of that premise, as the fleeing bank thief John is seeking a refuge so he can gather his thoughts, allow the heat to die down, and draw up a plan, with the details of what brought him to this sorry state revealed to us in flashback. That part could almost serve as a neo-noir as it contained all the right elements, but writer and director Nick Tomnay, whose debut feature this was, had other things in mind for his hapless lead character, and they included a large serving of David Hyde Pierce.
Pierce had found his forte in television sitcomland, and after that returned to the stage, but he made an exception for The Perfect Host; he was so strongly identified with the urbane, prissy type of person audiences were used to seeing him play that he was proving difficult to cast as anything else, and in this case it appeared he had been hired to perform the same old role. Stick with this, however, and you would understand what attracted him to the movie because this was one of those nothing is quite as it seems storylines - well, some things are as they seem, but others are assuredly not, which kept the viewer guessing where this was all heading next.
Some had issues with the farfetched nature of Tomnay's narrative, but after the first act it became clear since this was comedy we were watching it could head anywhere it pleased, so any quibbles about the major element of coincidence could be waved away by pointing out it was supposed to be funny, not to mention nightmarish. What happens to John is that he finds his haven after first stopping off at the home of a Jehovah's Witness (Helen Reddy making a rare big screen appearance, though not as a singing nun) and failing to fool her into allowing him in. Then he tries her neighbour, after sneakily reading a postcard from a friend lifted from his mailbox to provide a backstory for himself.
He tells Warwick Wilson (Pierce) that he met his friend Julia in Australia when they were both holidaying there, and she told him to look him up, so now he needs help after losing his luggage and getting mugged. Warwick falls for this tall tale hook, line and sinker and invites John in, explaining he has a dinner party scheduled for tonight, and the film begins to play out as a two-hander which begins to make you wonder if this would not have been better staged in the theatre. But Tomnay has a few tricks up his sleeve which have you realising a movie was the ideal medium, as John spins more tales to sound convincing and keeps nearly, but not quite, getting caught out. It's only a matter of time before Warwick twigs his guest is not all he seems, and when that happens we fear for his safety, given we have already seen John assault someone thanks to his short fuse which circumstances have only made worse. Veering close to horror at times, the rest of the movie may leave plausibility far behind, but it is highly amusing and Pierce is a joy to watch. Music by John Swihart.
