Anyone remember Quibi? Probably not. Back in 2018 investors sunk $1 billion into the short-form platform that was designed to create content for people's phones. No video could be longer than 10 minutes long but there could be on-going shows. In the first year 8500 videos were commissioned including 175 shows. So basically you could string 10 of these short videos together to make a 100 minute show.
The reason you may not have heard of it is because Quibi went bankrupt in just two years and most of its content sold to Roku for a tenth of its investment. Some of the shows were salvaged by taking them and turning them into feature length films. This is what happened to The Stranger.
Originally a 13-episode mini-series, they squished it together into a 90 minute movie and that is just what it plays like. A series of disjointed shorts smooshed together, both literally and figuratively. The reason why figuratively is that writer/director Veena Sud has taken the plots of about half a dozen movies and squished them together as well.
It starts out with our Suspense Queen Maika Monroe working as a ride share driver named Clare. She picks up a fare from a nice looking house in LA. You know it is not going to turn out well because the passenger Carl is played by Dane DeHaan who excels at playing psychopaths in movies such as Chronicle and The Amazing Spider-Man. Five minutes into their drive, he tells her he has murdered the family from the house she has just picked him up at, the plot from the movie The Hitcher.
She manages to turn the tables on him and gets him out of her car, but when she tells the police they won't believe her. She goes back to her apartment, with a large kitchen and long hallway to a separate bedroom, the biggest suspension of disbelief I had to make for this movie. What person new to LA working as a ride share driver could afford such a big apartment? She calls her mom and there is some question as to whether Clare is imagining all of this or it is real which is from the French thriller High Tension. She is chased from her apartment by Carl who comes running down the hallway and grabs at her through the elevator just like in Terminator 2.
While on the run she befriends a convenience store worker named JJ who gets sucked into this game as well. He wants to help her but is not quite sure he can trust her must like many other films such as Happy Death Day. After getting pulled over by the police and getting away, they try and leave town by train. Due to certain circumstances they end up in the train tunnel and are almost attacked by coyotes. I thought this was a bit ridiculous but apparently there is a coyote problem in LA. Who knew?
Without revealing too much more, let's just say when we finally do learn the truth it isn't as interesting as it thinks it is. The film goes on to rip off storylines of Speed, Silence of the Lambs, Seven, and even Legally Blonde. They even bring the damn coyotes back.
All in all it is a movie in search of a little originality. There is certainly some intrigue in the beginning when you are trying to figure out what is going on and whether it is really happening or not, but then once the mystery is gone so is the curiosity. It can found on Hulu and Roku.
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