MovieChat Forums > The Perfect Host (2011) Discussion > Spoilers: Thought the movie was fun, bu...

Spoilers: Thought the movie was fun, but...

posted 13 years ago by nrkist2424
14 replies | jump to latest

There are a couple issues with the movie:

1. Wouldn't the girlfriend have already skipped town with the money before she was identified all over the news as the one who burned John? Why did she stick around until the next morning and give the cops and John time to figure out what she had done?

2. Wouldn't the police have already suspected that the teller (the girlfriend) was possibly in on it? Isn't the police 101 in a bank heist: Inside job.

3. Warwick always knew that John was lying AND he was the guy he was supposed to be capturing in the bank heist case he was working (the gf had already identified him to the police although John didn't discover this until later when he heard it on the radio). The stupidest possible thing Warwick could have done was exactly what he spent the first two thirds of the movie doing.

4. Considering who John was, Warwick could never have let John go. He would have had to REALLY kill him regardless of the fact that John won the chess match. Warwick then reveals that he NEVER LIES and is forced to keep his word and release John. Warwick then spends the rest of the movie lying to everybody...seriously?

5. Warwick baits John after he releases him, and John grabs an ornamental dagger from off the mantle and stabs Warwick...only to discover it's a set prop with a retractable 'blade'. WTH? Why was it on display over the mantle? How did Warwick even know he would go for this as opposed to any other handy weapon of opportunity?

6. How does Warwick live in lavish luxury when he is a detective? How is he in charge of a major case that occured THAT very day, yet he did not work THAT day or the next? Remember his partner comes to his house the next day and interrupts Warwick on his 'day off' with a hunch before Warwick has cleaned up the house completely.

7. John mails one of Warwick's polaroids to Warwick's partner. When did he grab this picture? The only option is John took it from Warwick's house after Warwick allowed him to escape from the parking garage. Why then, did he pick the least incriminating picture? Why didn't he take the entire 'dinner party' album for that matter and deliver it to Warwick's partner?

8. Warwick should have killed John in the parking garage. There was a NESCESSITY to do so, and ZERO reason not to.

[–] nrkist2424 13 years ago

9. Anybody in Warwick's upscale neighborhood could have noticed John's passed out body in Warwick's trash, called the police (like the old lady did) and had every detective on Warwick's doorstep wondering why John was drugged,beaten and passed out in Warwick's trash. Really stupid move, and it makes no sense.

10. John had to immediately have known his girlfriend outed him when his face is plastered all over the tv and he is trying to get off the street in the film's opening. Why then is he so surprised when he later hears the news report on the radio identifying him at Warwick's house?

11. Why is Warwick's partner playing cat and mouse at the end...only to be duped like an idiot. John has NOWAY of knowing who Warwick is...unless he has met Warwick before. I really thought Warwick's partner was going to take him down...then in the face of a bunch of weak and illogical excuses, and an extremely manic performance, accepts an invite to one of Warwick's 'dinner parties' before proceeding further or alerting ANYONE to this bizarre evidence.

Third act really hurt this film a lot. Was a fun little black comedy for the first 2/3rds.

[–] nrkist2424 13 years ago

12. The whole rental car thing and time-table doesn't make any sense. I guess we are supposed to surmise that the first rental place John went to was the one his girlfriend was supposed to rent a car from for their ride out of town. This troubles him because he knows his girlfriend already burned him, so he gets suspicious and starts calling around town to different car rental places and discovers his GF made an earlier 8am rental at another location. I don't get how this led him to the parking garage or why the rental vehicle was there.

13. Timetable of the rental car. We know Warwick 'killed' John at 6am. John wakes up some time after that and hobbles to the rental car place. Must have been something of a walk out of that neighborhood, and why would it be within walking distance of Warwick's house? He then gets suspicious and calls around and discovers an 8 am rental pickup under his GF's name at a different car rental place. How does John hobble all over town in 60 minutes and catch his GF in the parking garage?

[–] nrkist2424 13 years ago

14. To further expand on the timetable issue...let's extrapolate how things went down...

Warwick 'kills' John right around 6am. Warwick is pretty fastidious, and we can surmise that this is legit. We don't know exactly how this works, but he somehow drugged John again and then spent some time applying makeup to John and taking pictures. 10-15 minutes minimum + knockout time. Generously, it is now 6:15 and Warwick drags an unconcious John out to his trash heap (why is his trash so messy and built up?). Obviously John wouldn't wake up at 6:16, Warwick wouldn't cut it that close. 6:20 even seems unlikely, but we will work with that. John wakes up at 6:20 stumbles around for 5 minutes, smokes a cigarette and walks to the car rental place. While it is extremely unlikely that the very same car rental place him and his GF planned to use were within 15 minute hobble from Warwick's (or any car rental place for that matter), we can establish that it is 6:40 in the best of all worlds. After a 10 minute conversation with the concierge it is 6:50. John then finds a pay phone (5 minutes?) and calls EVERY rental place in town. Minimum 15 minutes if he's lucky. It's actually well after 7 at this point when John discovers the 8am rental. He then beats everybody in vehicles to the parking garage...hobbling along at an inch a second.

How the heck did John manage this, let alone figure out where to intercept his GF?

[–] gtriping 13 years ago

Didn't he steal a motorcycle at the end to get around?

[–] nrkist2424 13 years ago

What?! If so, this is not in the netflix version I watched.

[–] kby8720 13 years ago

There was a Motorcycle towards the end and he used its mirror to take the fake throat slit off his neck, but he walks away after that. He doesn't steal the Motorcycle.

[–] va_bek 13 years ago

Well, figuring out the place where his girlfriend would be, can be easy, if we assume that he called the rental service again and asked where the 8am car were to be delivered...

As for the time to get there, it's a bit stretched indeed, especially when you're moving around on a hurt foot and half-drugged... But he surely had his 30 minutes, and he got away from Warwick's neighborhood in less than that.

I guess by this point the director wanted to resolve the final twist by putting everyone in the right place without really checking the timetables... Warwick and the detective actually drove from Warwick's house to Simone's house (picking up in the meanwhile the second detective) and then followed her to the parking garage... that would require several minutes on the street, I presume.

[–] nrkist2424 13 years ago

In a film of this sort, some people don't like these little details being unexplained. 'They just happened that way' is a pretty outrageous explanation for a film that pits itself as a thinky thriller. There is nothing 'thinky' about this, it's all forced in the last 3rd of the film.

How long would it take you to walk to the nearest rental place in your town? Exactly. Now follow with me. What is the possibility that this is the SAME rental place you and your girlfriend planned to rent from after an ill-fated heist? Very Low. Just forgiving all the extravagances of the plot, there is no way he even got to the first rental place let alone stumbled to the parking garage before everyone else. THEY NEVER EXPLAINED HOW HE EVEN KNEW WHERE THE OTHER RENTAL CAR WAS PARKED!

Movie started out decent, then got really really bad in the third act...and just hopes you don't notice.

[–] va_bek 13 years ago

I think you are absolutely right about the inconsistency of the facts... I just pointed out that the director probably took for granted the viewer would make these conclusions. As you said, he just hopes you won't notice (or won't care).

In my opinion, the third act's "weakness" results from the short-film theme being "clumsily" expanded into a feature film. Although I have not seen the original short, I 'd guess the parts of the heist-gone-wrong and Warwick being a cop weren't so much explored there.

[–] nrkist2424 13 years ago

Good point. I hadn't considered that it was based off a short. Probably works better as a short though...

[–] auhsoj87 13 years ago

While I can't say much with any certainty about the rest of your points, number 12 is pretty clear. I just watched the film, and in the bit where Warwick is yelling at the woman to move her car, it cuts briefly to a guy standing by the side of the entrance to the garage. The guy steps away to reveal - briefly, but in the center of the shot - a sign for a car rental place on the fifth floor, or something like that. So, the rental car wasn't randomly parked in the parking garage, that's just where the rental place is located.

"Honestly, Trevor, if you were half a man you would've gone in there after the blender."

[–] oddball_oddity-1 13 years ago

While I agree the rationale of some of these events doesn't makes much sense:

10. While logically John should have assumed it was her, he was in love with her. Denial can be a powerful thing.

[–] whatwazdat 13 years ago

3. Warwick always knew that John was lying AND he was the guy he was supposed to be capturing in the bank heist case he was working (the gf had already identified him to the police although John didn't discover this until later when he heard it on the radio). The stupidest possible thing Warwick could have done was exactly what he spent the first two thirds of the movie doing.
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Nrkist2424, the first time we see the 2 cops chatting about the case, cop A ask, "what's that?" Cop B responded, "Witness statements!" Cop A says, "We have a lead witness already?" Cop B then goes on to explain who she ID'ed them. At that time, John is already at Warwick's house. Warwick did not know yet, he found out when John told him to STFU cause he wanted to listen to the news. Warwick has mental issues. To expect him to act rationally in the first two thirds of the movie, then you have no movie.

[–] nrkist2424 13 years ago

This is a terribly forced 'contrivance' that Warwick is 'crazy' and therefore doesn't know what is going on. He clearly understands what is happening and 'knows what he knows'. Even if I follow you in this regard, there is the second issue that John already knew he was burned before he came to Warwick's house. That is the SOLE reason he hatched his scheme to get off the street. Obviously the only person that could have burned him and plastered his face all over the television was his GF/accomplice. Why is John then so surprised when he hears this fact on the radio...he was already aware of this fact! Why are we supposed to think Warwick didn't put this together immediately as we know later in the film that he is somehow the detective in charge of the case and his GF had already outted John? 'Because he's crazy' is your explanation. Doesn't really fit in with his character. Just because your crazy, doesn't mean you're stupid or have memory impairment. Warwick is a perfect example of this. It's infact 'out-of-character' for him to act in the way he did.