Uninvited Guest

A marriage on the rocks. A mysterious stranger who awakens a housewife's long-suppressed desires. Sound like a cheap romance novel? It feels that way for a while, especially with the aid of some awful saxophone music. But then the stranger (Mekhi Phifer) starts getting homicidal. First-time writer-director Timothy Wayne Folsome seems to be aspiring to translate a mixture of Kevin Williamson (the husband is a screenwriter working on a film about a cheating wife) and Quentin Tarantino (trash-talking sadist with a gun tying people to chairs) into an African-American setting, and during the early stages, it works. There's some genuine tension and risk, with the sense that any character can be killed at any time. Alas, it isn't long before the surprise twists start to kick in, each more ludicrous and implausible than the last, leading up to a shockingly brutal finale. If there's any redeeming quality to the film, it's in Phifer's performance. Embodying seduction, menace, and schizophrenia all at once, he makes a charismatic lead for a movie that doesn't quite deserve him. Making his big-screen debut, meanwhile, Boyz II Men's Wanya Morris acquits himself well as a reformed hoodlum-turned-screenwriter.