Directed by David M. Rosenthal. Produced by Tommy Oliver, Nicole Rocklin, Wendy Rhoads, and Darryl Taja. Written by Tyger Williams. Release date: September 11, 2015.
When studios refuse to screen a movie for press, it’s typically because the movie in question isn’t all that good. The Perfect Guy fits into both of these categories. Not only did it not get screened – on the morning of its release, there wasn’t a single review online – but it’s also really, really bad. There’s almost nothing to like about it, it’s essentially a scene-for-scene rip-off of any other stalker thriller that you can name, and despite running for only 100 minutes, it feels as if it’s on-screen for about six hours. This is a torturous movie to sit through.
Of course, we’re only getting The Perfect Guy because No Good Deed was a success at the box office. It, too, wasn’t screened for press, but Sony at least tried to defend it by claiming that critics would ruin its plot twist if they saw it in advance – a ludicrous claim, but what are you going to do? There is no such defense this time. There is no plot twist to ruin; the only thing critics could do is rightly inform the potential audience how horrible a movie they’re about to witness.
Our plot sees Leah (Sanaa Lathan), a lobbyist, break up with her boyfriend, David (Morris Chestnut), because he isn’t ready for marriage and children. Soon after, she meets Carter (Michael Ealy), who seems like – wait for it – the perfect guy. He’s sweet, charming, and protective of her. But after getting too protective and beating a man half to death, she ends things. Then he enters full-on stalker mode, which is where he remains for the rest of the film, because that’s the type of movie The Perfect Guy is.
We had one of these earlier in 2015. It was called The Boy Next Door, and while it wasn’t any good, it’s at least incrementally better than this one. At the very least, it contained an R rating, and didn’t take itself so seriously that you couldn’t laugh along with its ridiculousness. The Perfect Guy, meanwhile, takes a safe PG-13 approach, and is far too self-important and serious to allow the audience the opportunity to laugh at – or with – it. It wants to be dark, it wants to be mysterious, and it wants to be suspenseful, but it’s none of these things. It’s silly but lacks self-awareness.
The Perfect Guy is such a bad stalker thriller that it’ll hopefully put an end to these movies for a good while.
The Perfect Guy is also incredibly generic. You can construct these types of stalker thrillers in your sleep, and it feels like this movie was crafted in that state. Take any cliche you can think of when it comes to these movies – and if you haven’t seen one, go watch Fatal Attraction and get back to me – and it’ll be in here. It’s so bland that you could fall asleep a third of the way through, wake up during the credits, and figure out exactly what happened. As a result, it feels like you’ve watched it before, and it becomes a boring, overlong watch. I felt like I was at the cinema for six hours to watch The Perfect Guy, even though it was only 100 minutes.
The one bright spot in The Perfect Guy comes from the acting, which is passable, making it feel like a highlight in a movie where otherwise nothing even scrapes its way to mediocrity. Sanaa Lathan as our lead is fine at looking scared, which is all she needed to do. Morris Chestnut gets to show off two looks: sensitive and angry. The real star is Michael Ealy, who so effectively switches from being sweet and charming to a psychopath that you never for a second don’t believe him. The acting isn’t the problem with this movie; it’s everything surrounding the acting that causes The Perfect Guy to be an immense failure.
An easy contender for a 2015 worst-of list, The Perfect Guy is such a bad stalker thriller that it’ll hopefully put an end to these movies for a good while. It won’t, because it’ll make money, but I can hope, right? It’s a generic movie that is repetitive and overlong, hindered by its PG-13 rating, and completely devoid of suspense. Its only positive comes from Michael Ealy, and maybe the cat featured in a few scenes. Cats are, after all, pretty awesome. Maybe next time we can make a stalker thriller, but with cats. Hang on; I’ll get Sony anyone but Sony on the phone.
Bottom Line: The Perfect Guy is a terrible stalker movie with no tension, no suspense, and almost no reason to watch it.
Recommendation: Just go (re-)watch Fatal Attraction, since it’s still one of the only examples of this type of movie done really well.
[rating=0.5]
If you want more of Matthew “Marter” Parkinson, you can follow him on the Twitter @Martertweet and check out his weekly movie podcast.
