The Stranger Game (2006) Mimi Rogers, David Orth, Barclay Hope, Casey Dubois, Sonya Salomaa, Catherine Lough Haggquist Movie Review

The Stranger Game (2006)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Mimi Rogers in The Stranger Game (2006)

The Perfect Manny

Having just relocated as her husband Paul (Barclay Hope) has got a promotion, Joanna Otis (Mimi Rogers) finds herself struggling to juggle her busy career with looking after their son, Sam (Casey Dubois). It is why they decide to hire a nanny although when Charlie King (David Orth) shows up Joanna is a little shocked as a manny hadn't even crossed her mind. But Charlie seems perfect as he runs the home with spectacular efficiency. That is until he starts planting evidence to make it seem that Paul is cheating on Joanna and they start to realise that Charlie is not the perfect manny they thought.

"The Stranger Game" is one of those TV movies with a storyline which seems to come around every year where we have a nanny who turns out to be a complete and utter psycho nightmare. As such "The Stranger Game" pretty much goes through the routine as first Paul struggles with having Charlie around the home, feeling like he is being pushed out of his own family by this young man especially when Sam starts to listen to Charlie more than he does Paul. But of course it evolves with Charlie getting devious and trying to turn Joanna against her husband by dredging up trust issues surrounding him having an affair.

The trouble is that "The Stranger Game" simply ends up too familiar as it works through all the stereotypical elements with first Paul becoming suspicious of Charlie and then Joanna beginning to realise she doesn't really know Charlie. I wish I could say there is a lot more to "The Stranger Game" than this but I can't as whilst it has some slightly more original elements such as Joanna having taught her son how to react when a stranger talks to them it doesn't actually add much to the movie other than the knowledge that it will play a part at some point in the movie.

What this all boils down to is that "The Stranger Game" is a 2006 version of the nanny movies which get made for Lifetime now. In truth it isn't really any worse than the modern versions other than of course it is a little dated and suffers because of it being simply textbook with little in the way of originality.


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