Perfect Strangers (1984)

Touches You

People are voting emotionally.

Best movie of this year hands down!

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

New York filmmaker Larry Cohen has certainly made some memorable movies in his career, but "Perfect Strangers" has to be considered a considerable lesser effort by him. It gets off to a promising start, setting up the situation and characters in just a few minutes. Elsewhere in the movie, there are some moments of interesting direction that give the movie an almost documentary-like feeling. However, the majority of the movie is a letdown. After the intriguing beginning, the movie abruptly slows down to a snail-like pace where little to nothing of significance is happening. The relationship between the Brad Rijn and Anne Carlisle is also weak, with too little time showing the growing relationship between the two. (It also doesn't help that each character is each off-screen for a significant amount of time.) The low budget also sinks the movie, with poor cinematography and threadbare production values, including a very dated and cheesy musical score. I got the sense that Cohen's heart really wasn't in this project, despite being the writer as well as director. Skip it.

Greatly enjoyed this low budget film starring Anne Carlisle, (Sally) and Brad Rifin, (Johnny) and a little boy who becomes the real star of the show. This picture opens up with two men going down an alley in New York City and one of them gets knifed to death along with his throat cut from left to right. This is a mob rub out, however, there is an eye witness and the killer sees him face to face. The killer tells his mob bosses about the witness to his crime and that he will search the streets around the area of the killing. Brad Rijin, (Johnny) plays a mobster who meets up with a young gal named Sally, (Anne Carlisle) and the two of them pretty soon start making love, however, Johnny is only using Sally in order to gain her confidence and at the same time kill the witness to his crime. Entertaining film with great scenes of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Twin Towers in the background, rather sad. Enjoy.

Writer/Director Larry Cohen offers an interesting thriller with 'Perfect Strangers,' which would have been more logical had it not been premised around such a stupid plot. That is, a young mafioso who's stabbing of another man is witnessed by a two year-old from behind a fence. At first, certain that the boy is too young to act as a reasonable witness for the cops (and I doubt any court would let a kid that young testify anyways...and doing so would give a defense attorney good grounds for appeal), but later doubts the boy's ability to identify him, and gets nervous. What is even dumber is, that his crime associates, want to kill the kid because they're worried he may be a viable key witness. In they end, they turned out to be dumber than the guy who actually committed the crime.To get close to the kid, I suppose as a way of testing what the kid knows and can tell, he hooks up with the boy's mother who is also a stupid character. Although it may be harsh to criticize her for getting cozy so quickly with some guy she met on the street, she always ignores many of the warning signs that this is the guy that stabbed the man just behind their backyard fence. She is aware that a crime occurred, and rushed her boy inside when she saw that he was standing in the backyard by the fence staring at the dead man. Inconsistent in attitude, this sense of emergency never seems to grip her much or make her changes her ways throughout the rest of the film. And the only one who might actually be able to get her to wake up and realize what is going on (too late) is her estranged husband who is suspicious of the new beau and warns her about him for the sake of her and the kid.The story was at least entertaining enough, offering at least some mystery where the plot is based along too many logical flaws--namely, the stupidity of the main characters. But it might nonetheless be worth checking out. Unfortunately, Cohen doesn't offer some of the good-natured quick wit or brief, black comedy he does in his later films. But what the heck, it's a low-budget production. Look for Ann Manguson (of 'Making Mr. Right') in a brief role as the main woman's feminist sidekick, Malda.

A hit-man 's crime took place under a toddler's eyes.The boy cannot speak yet ,but as his mother unwisely says,he's very clever,very observant and when he starts speaking,he will have a lot to tell us about.So the murderer seduces the mother in order to get rid of the witness.The only interesting scenes are the ones which involve the man and the child.And even with them,the movie never really takes off.The writers drag things out with their photographs trick which exhausts any suspense.The adults are not very convincing,and Johnny's behavior does not make any sense.The mother is a bubblehead -how long it takes her to find out what lies beneath!-,and the actress does not even succeed in making us believe she loves her son dearly.