never talk to strangers ( 1995 ) a " turkey of the week " film review by justin felix . copyright 1998 justin felix . written by lewis green and jordan rush . directed by peter hall . starring rebecca de mornay , antonio banderas , dennis miller . rated r ( contains violence , nudity , and profanity ) 86 mins . synopsis : blond criminal psychologist sarah chooses to copulate with greasy tony the mysterious puerto rican rather than bearded cliff the wisecracking neighbor upstairs . in the meantime , someone sends sarah rotting flowers , puts her name in the newspaper's obituary column , and kills her cat . comments : never talk to strangers , a colossal waste of time , moves slower than molasses in winter to arrive at a conclusion which should be obvious to the audience 20 minutes into the film . one wouldn't think that two genuine movie stars , antonio banderas ( evita ) and rebecca de mornay ( hand that rocks the cradle ) , and the acerbic comic genius dennis miller ( " saturday night live " ) would be involved in such a celluloid backfire as this turkey . not only are they in it , however , but de mornay executive produced it . what was she thinking ? never talk to strangers centers upon sarah , a psychologist examining the ill-tempered max , a murderer soon to stand trial . she receives a sudden visit from her father which elicits flashbacks of some tragedy in her early childhood . two men woo her ; tony the " security consultant " wins her over ( so they have passionate sex replete with cheesy saxophone music ) . a lot of psychobabble is thrown around about multiple personality disorder , but the movie asks its audience not to derive the obvious conclusion between mpd and sarah , and instead offers several male characters as red herrings . 86 minutes , the running time of this cinematic mess , thus , seem like 86 hours . a good chunk of never talk to strangers is spent upon sarah and tony . why would the career-minded , professional sarah feel attracted to the walking steroid with a black hat called tony ? that's one of the film's mysteries which are never answered . regardless of motive , de mornay and banderas strip down and have sex several times in what passes for eroticism . they also manage to go out before copulating occasionally -- in one of the stupidest scenes of the film , tony takes sarah to a carnival that's * right outside * his dingy apartment ( that way , they can hurry back and have sex quickly ) . also , apparently , the weather changes quickly in their locale : they're at this outdoor carnival one day before having sex ; the next day , they're out playing in the snow before having sex . the filmmakers attempt to produce a suspenseful plot interspersed with tony and sarah's " character development . " someone is out to get poor sarah ( though most of the audience should have figured out who before any of this starts ) . rotting flowers , a writeup in the obituary , and a beaten neighbor are just a few of the bad things which happen to her . suspense cliche number one also occurs : whenever someone is stalked in thrillers , by any means , if the stalked has a pet , that pet will die . oftentimes , to even further the cliche , the murdered pet is a cat ( suspense filmmakers , for some reason , just don't like cats ) . sarah , in never talk to strangers , receives a package and , lo and behold , discovers her mutilated cat within . suspense at its very derivative ! as stated before , never talk to strangers is a poor excuse for a film whose sole purpose seems to be exploiting banderas and de mornay's bodies as often as possible . comedian dennis miller is completely wasted here ( he's not given lines that are suitable for his persona ) and doesn't even appear all that much . maybe , in a way , he's lucky for that . early on in the movie , sarah tells tony , after meeting him in a supermarket , that she had been advised to never talk to strangers . allow me to advise that you never watch this stinker . 
